CROWN POINT | The Lake County Solid Waste Management District has scheduled a public hearing for 7 p.m. Oct. 16 regarding whether to grant Powers Energy One a contract to build a commercial bio-ethanol plant here.

The 27-member board voted in August to approve a preliminary agreement with the Evansville-based ethanol entrepreneur to build an $80 million plant that would turn garbage into ethanol in return for the county supplying municipal waste for the next 20 years.

The board could award a final contract after a 30-day public comment period ends.

No site has been picked for a plant, which county officials promise would create hundreds of construction and permanent jobs and secure tens of millions in property taxes and fees.

Sandy O'Brien, of the Dunelands Sierra Club and Revitalization First Collaborative, has been one of several environmental activists who oppose Powers process of heating garbage into a gas to produce the alternative fuel source.

"Gasification of garbage is very expensive and has historically been a polluting and unreliable operation. Why should Lake County take the risk?" she states in a written comment she provided The Times this week.

O'Brien argues a rival firm, Agresti Biofuels, also of Evansville, offers a cleaner process. Agresti would grind and pressure cook garbage in an underground vessel prior to fermentation of ethanol.

Lake County Solid Waste District Executive Director Jeffery Langbehn said Thursday he toured a pilot ethanol plant run by Powers Energy this week in Arkansas in advance of the expected debate.

He said he will report details of his tour to the waste board Oct. 16. The agency is at 7820 Broadway in Merrillville.

"I saw them heat up garbage, and at the other end they turned on the tap and 90 proof ethanol came out. I have to say it really works," Langbehn said.

Consultants for the waste board argue neither process has been proven on a commercial basis.

Langbehn said Agresti can continue to perfect its process and approach the county to build its own plant in the future.