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Highlands Today
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Proposed Training Center, Ethanol Plant Moving Ahead
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Published: December 24, 2008
SEBRING - The Highlands County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday on measures that move forward plans for a security training center that could employ up to 200 people and a cellulosic ethanol plant that will create an estimated 140 jobs in the southern end of the county.
The Florida Department of Community Affairs, which directs development in the state, had objected to the training center plans, which could bring in up to 1,000 government and private security personnel for training at a time, because the county's land use plans have no designation for training centers in agricultural areas.
Jim Polatty, county development services director, said the state's objection should be answered by the commissioners by creating the training center category in its land use regulations for rural areas.
Southern Farms has a pending contract to sell 7,762 acres off Graham-Dairy Road, about 20 miles south of State Road 70 and 3 1/2 miles west of Venus, to a new corporation named Highlands 7700, for the security training center.
According to attorney Bert Harris III, representing the landowner, the training center would employ up to 200 full-time staff, at salaries running between $60,000 to $80,000.
Construction could begin in about 12 months if the developer secures the necessary state permits.
The commissioners also granted a special use permit, with contingencies, for Verenium Biofuels Inc. to build a cellulosic biofuels plant on 95 acres the company would purchase on the Lykes Brothers farm off State Road 70, east of U.S. 27.
Tim Eves, vice president for commercial development at Verenium, said the plant would cost about $350 million to construct and will produce 36 million gallons of ethanol per year.
About 400,000 tons of dried feed stocks, mostly high fiber sugar cane, will be needed and all of the plant material will be grown by Lykes Brothers on its 35,000 acres of farmland surrounding the proposed plant, Eves said.
Eves said the plant will be operated by 65 full-time employees, with wages in the range of $70,000, or about three times the average wage in Highlands County. Farming operations to supply the plant will create another 75 jobs, he said.
The commissioners made the special use permit contingent on Verenium completing a fire protection plan, a detailed plan to prevent any obnoxious odors from escaping from the property, and getting the necessary state and water management districts permits.
If all goes as planned, Eves said, construction would start in the fourth quarter of 2009 and the plant would go into production in late 2011.
Highlands County could have two biofuels plants, as Tampa-based U.S. Envirofuels has already secured rezoning and a special use permit to build an enthanol plant that would process mostly sweet sorghum at U.S. 27 and State Road 70.
In late October, Bradley Krohn, president of U.S. Envirofuels, said the company is close to signing contracts with local growers to provide material for the plant, which would initially produce 20 million gallons of ethanol per year and could be expanded to produce 40 million gallons.
Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com
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