The Scott County, Iowa, Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-1 July 17 to reject a rezoning request by Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) for a $1.5 billion nitrogen plant. OCI has the option to buy the 318 acres, which is currently zoned agricultural and would have to be rezoned for heavy industry.
The meeting was reportedly standing-room only with some 50 speakers, with most of those against the plant. While many wanted the jobs that would come with the plant, they did not want it to disturb existing prime farmland, but instead be sited somewhere already zoned industrial. Governor Terry Branstad and the Iowa Farm Bureau sent letters in support of the plant.
OCI appears intent on a site in Iowa and will proceed with its plans for Scott County, as this appears to be its preferred site within the state out of the four considered. The request will next go before the Scott County Board of Supervisors in August. Another large meeting is expected. While Illinois is also trying to lure OCI to a site near Pekin, the company also has the alternative of building a new plant at its existing facility in Beaumont, Texas.
In the meantime, at least one branch of the Iowa Tea Party is opposed to the plant on the grounds that taxpayers will provide some $392 million for the plant. “If OCI gets all the breaks it wants, each job will cost Iowa taxpayers $200,000,” claims the group on its website. While the Burlington Tea Party’s own meeting to discuss the plant last week had to be postponed, it expects to reschedule in August. The Burlington group put up an online petition to oppose the plant, initially slated for Lee County. Lee County has since been set aside as being in a 100-year flood plain. The group was also opposed to the Lee site due to environmental concerns, including concern for the wetlands, the Indiana bat, the Yellow Sandshell Mussel, and nine species of butterflies.