Chesapeake City Council says no to ethanol plant

Ethanol is not the savior of our future oil needs. The little that is produced has already caused corn prices, milk etc to go through the roof! Drill in Anwar, the Gulf etc and build more refineries until we can figure out some efficient energy source. Global warming caused by carbon dioxide and methane is a hoax. In thirty years they will again be calling for an ice age. It is cyclical you moronic folks.

I have an Indian friend that once told me he had to come to a country where even the poor were fat... I don't think anyone has to worry about starving people in the states... yes we have poor people, yes we have some under fed people, but if you really want to know starvation I suggest you head to part os India, Africa, and a whole host of other places... That's where starvation takes on a whole new meaning in the American Lexion. They're not even worried about the cost of Gas, they're just praying for survival.

Chesapeake City Council finally did the right thing but only after immense effort by the local community. Corn-based ethanol is a politically motivated fraud and is not a viable energy source. Ethanol plant projects across the country are being shuttered and halted in development. I am glad that our citizens took the time to research this project and step up to the plate and point out to our obviously un-informed City Council the facts about ethanol. If you want to do something actually beneficial, build a wind farm or a solar farm on the property. Non-polluting reneweable sources of energy that will not destroy the local water supply and increase the pollution/infrastructure problems in our neighborhoods!!

If our fore fathers had said "not in my back yard" this would not be the America we know today. You folks live on or near a industrial area. It has been an industrial area since the 1800"s. Craddock was built to house workers from the ship yard (industry). I'm' sorry, I hate to see uninformed people on a soap box. You should have looked around before you purchased your back yard. 150 good paying jobs, 4 mil in city revenue down the drain. I live in South Norfolk and have all my life, so I know of what I speak. It's my back yard or someone elses. It should have been mine.

I'm glad this project was disapproved but not because of the pollution issue. If we worried about pollution, we'd have no shipyards. My worry was the traffic. Industry keeps growing in this area but the roads are hundreds of years old! They were built during a time when this was a farming area with a shipyard and a Navy base on the fringes. I had horrible visions of the traffic this was going to cause. I'm glad it's gone(for now).

To All Naysayers-RE: Recent vote by CC Council--You must not recognize what our communities were facing as apparently, by the locales your posts represent, your responses indicate that you would've had no real threat posed to your well-being or way of life. Portsmouth & Chesapeake (Cradock & Brentwood, respectively) did what we had to do in persuading the CC Council to eliminate this potential hazard from consideration & to vote "no" as they did. To David K. in Norfolk-Remember that the same freedom of democracy-in-action that worked its good for The People in the refusal handed down by CC Council, is the same type of freedom that you enjoy in using this forum to post your lack of appreciation for the plight of your fellowman. Sweet dreams!

Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!!! For those who know what they think they know, research the research. Stopping short of a full answer for yourself is wasting your time and breath.

First of all, Craddock can never be made worse than it is now. That area needs a air strike to improve the neighborhood. Second, the city of Chesapeake missed out on a great oppurtunity to bring business to is city. The jobs created from this plant would have gone far beyond the plant itself. Support business would have boomed. I'm sure they will not have problem building it somewhere else. But we lose again !

Thank you for preserving our neighborhood, property values, and possibly our health!

As a home owner in Cradock this is wonderful news! First they wanted to put in a trash port near us and then this ethanol plant (!?!) - I am so thankful this was voted down. Cradock really can use some good news :)

After the so called oponents defeated this plan, they got in their cars and drove home using Mideast oil. The City Council is guttless. Years from now they will be laughed at for defeating this measure.

I work with CUP's daily and this one is no different from any other. The people who are in objection rarely know the correct facts and the people who presented the application (it appears) didn't do a good job selling the project so everyone reacts in fear. There is no way that a plant of this proportion would or could ever impact an environment in the way that many were concerned outside of a huge disaster. They aren't the kitchens of a McDonalds. This plant would be as safe and clean as a hospital. Your local gas stations are more of a concern to the public than this plant would be in terms of environmental impact. Things in your house will have more of an affect on your children. In the end, ignorance wins out on both sides.

I have seen several comments bemoaning the fact that a "no" vote to the ethanol plant consigns us to paying exhorbitant gas prices. Here is a way that we can keep gasoline from hitting us in the wallets so hard: Explore and drill for oil right here in the US! Our elected leaders need to stop paying homage to the radical environmentalists and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The Chesapeake City Council did the right thing by voting no. They listened to us, the citizens of Chesapeake and Portsmouth, and some people still are not satisfied. The ethanol plants in Wisconsin were placed in remote areas for a reason, and the residents of Brentwood and Cradock would have had this plant in their backyards, as it were. Not a good thing.

While I am happy that council voted no to this plant, they only did so, because they are up for re-election. Let's not forget, they were all for this plant, except Krasnoff & de Triquet from the very beginning. What's scary is the fact that Chesapeake city council did not have the wisdom or insight to hire professional enviornmental & odor engineers that Portsmouth city council did. In order to create a local city council government that actually listens to citizens, city hall must be swept clean in May 08'. While this is a small victory, I do not see seven of these council members truely advocating for public safety,health and welfare of citizens 100% of the time. Don't be fooled! Look at their past voting history, it sticks to them good!

We don't have a shortage of oil, and ethanol is the wrong answer. I am amazed at how ethanol is now just accepted as the way we should go. This is a political solution - gets a lot of votes in the heartland. We need to drill for more oil where it makes sense and increase our refining capacity. China is drilling "our" oil in cooperation with Cuba. I'm sure they will do more environmentally friendly than Shell Oil could - eh?

this ethanol plant will happen somewhere. i'm sure they'll enjoy processing our ethanol in mexico. then we can all complain about american jobs leaving this country.

Wise decision, corn ethanol isn't the answer. I would rather have $4 to $5 gas than for food stuffs to be so expensive that some poorer individuals couldn't afford a decent meal. Ethanol means less mileage per gallon, and higher food prices. What is needed is an alternative to oil based energy.

Hope everyone is happy now. Don't whine when you are paying 4 or 5 bucks for gas!

I have been following this series about this "great" ethanol plant proposing seductive numbers as a hook.
Why couldn't our media sources and local officials read about ethanol gluts in the midwest, stops on the building of new ones planned and why, the greater effects of corn price increases, and the emission reductions compared to gas minimal relative to several other sources of available materials?Maybe some have enjoyed this intrigue(?) back and forth, but the pathetic overview is how much city and citizens' personal time-money has been wasted reinventing the wheel of truthful evaluations and studies long out plus the glut in abundance through search engines comparing the better, real reductions using available alternatives-turkey

Being a marine engineer and operating diesels engines up to 30,000 horsepower I know something about internal combustion engines. Ethenol is not the answer, drilling for domestic oil is, but no one wants to live near any type of refinery or plant. You are not taught in goverment schools were oil comes from. The big expense comes from the foreign goverment it is purchased from Your state legislators voted aganst drilling this year in this state and did not ask the public about it. The oil company makes a dime a gallon, taxes take 65 cents. Write your congressman and let the oil companied drill. Again another opportunity to have a real job instead service related and tourist trap has been passed up. Enviromentalism is now run amok.

that if this plant can be voted down then the Smiling Earth Circus will be get voted down.

I used to believe ethanol was good until I researched it and found that it actually produces much more smog than regular gasoline - look at the Midwest, not to mention the pollution that ethanol plants emit. Hundreds of thousands of acres would also be exploited for the growth of corn, which in turn would pollute watersheds, such as the Chesapeake, and prices on affected foods would also skyrocket.

develops a national reputation an "unfriendly to industry" region? No ethanol plant in Chesapeake, no trucks on Hampton Blvd. in Norfolk, close NAS Oceana due to jet noise..., maybe Ford was right, maybe they read the writing on the wall when they closed their assembly plant. Wake up, Hampton Roads, there are only so many short order cooks and greeters needed at McDonald's and WalMart. So..., where are your children going to work???

Great comments from the "people at home" in their cushy armchairs on their computers, who this will not affect...built or unbuilt. This was to take place in my backyard. I applaud my fellow neighbors in Brentwood and in Craddock who physically got out there with the flyers and went to the meeting. I applaud the City Council for listening to us. "A small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead Happy Thanksgiving yall!!

I was at the meeting and the experts hired by Portsmouth City Council proved that the International Bio Energy twisted their facts and basically lied about their applications and the way the EPA rules are and how DEQ monitors sites (in other words their promises were full of holes). They were not honest and did you know that you can't run straight Ethenol in a gas vehicle unless its specifically made to run it (very few are). You would have to ditch your car and get a new one. Its not just adding it to your tank and driving. I was impressed with the way the Portsmouth council handled this (I live in Brentwood in Chesapeake and lived in Portsmouth 10 years). Chesapeake approved the biodiesel plant, they didn't need the Ethynol plant also.

Finally, good sense prevails.

God bless those of you who voted no. There were too many unknowns and too many risks. For those that were for this plant, have you ever heard of cost-benefit analysis? There is little proven evidence that ethanol will lower the cost of gas but it building this plant could have potentially huge costs. Guess none of you have heard the phrase "do under others as you would have them do unto you." And no, the plant is not suitable for our back yard, which is a heavily populated area. The other plants are not in populated areas. Let them test their technology where there is no risk to human life! Glad you all in favor of this plant didn't decide where to test the A-bomb! Edge and Willis will not ever get my vote again.

A wise decision was made on behalf of the citizens of Chesapeake and Portsmouth by the denial of this conditional use permit. We, as individuals, are responsible for lessening our dependence on fossil fuels by the choices we make daily, the cars we drive, the products we buy that use fossil fuels, and the way we conserve our resources. We, as individuals, are the ones that created that dependence on "foreign" oil. The vote was not about viability of ethanol to do that. Did this project meet the requirements to not adversely effecting the health, safety or comfort of persons living or working or driving through the area? No it did not. I applaud City Council for their decision.

Congratulations Chesapeake City Council. I applaud your decision even though you will get slapped around by others. This was/is a lose-lose project inspite of the enticements. I hope your wisdom is proved right

Make it a park. 97 acres would be perfect for about 500 soccer fields for the kids to play. South Carolina will get 150 more jobs not to mention tre potential construction opportunities for contractors, and Chesapeake will get more grass cutters (provided that they prove their citizenship).