CROWN POINT | Lake County officials could vote as early as this week to formally invite construction of an $80 million garbage-to-ethanol plant.

"I would expect preliminary contract approval on Thursday night and then go for a 30-day public hearing," said Jeffery Langbehn, executive director of the Lake County Solid Waste District. "Then the board will have the ability to adopt a final contract."

He said a committee of the 27-member district waste board is scheduled to meet behind closed doors today to review feasibility studies on Genahol-Powers 1 LLC and Indiana Ethanol Power LLC, both of Evansville. The committee will report to the full board Thursday.

The district is in the midst of negotiating a 20-year contract with the two companies and Allied Waste to dispose of the county's residential garbage for the next 20 years.

Genahol-Powers and Indiana Ethanol would ferment the waste into biofuel in plants somewhere in the county. Allied, which currently collects most garbage in the county, would continue trucking it to rural downstate landfills.

Efforts to approve a preliminary contract in June were stalled by discrepancies in what the ethanol vendors were demanding from the county in terms of guaranteed business.

County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Schererville, an enthusiastic supporter of an ethanol approach to trash disposal, said, "We are very close to concluding all of our findings."

Langbehn said municipal officials in the region have committed to funneling their waste to an ethanol plant.

"We have a large number of communities who have come back and said, 'Yes, we support the project.'"

Scheub said a contract could lock in promises from the companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on plant construction, create hundreds of construction and permanent jobs, and secure tens of millions of dollars in property taxes.

"The only thing that hasn't been discussed yet is where the site will be," Scheub said.

Environmentalists have opposed locating an ethanol plant in an urban setting such as Gary or Hammond.

Scheub said the Indiana Department of Environmental Management would conduct a technical and environmental analysis over several months before issuing a permit for construction.

J.W. Spears, an engineering consultant hired by the district, previously has recommended Genahol -- which would use a high-heat gasification process to combust waste into a gas -- as the primary vendor because its technology appears more reliable.

Members of the Northwest Interfaith Federation, Duneland Sierra Club, the Calumet Project and Revitalization First Collaborative have declared the processes of Indiana Ethanol -- which would grind and pressure-cook trash into a watery substance -- more environmentally friendly.