By: Patrick Meagher

FINCH — The 2,800 shareholders in Seaway Valley Energy Co-operative are now eyeing February 2007 as the date when they will finally see a $54 million corn-fed ethanol plant at Cornwall.

Here’s the latest time table: By mid-July the building contractor should have re-priced the job to build the plant. By the end of July a deal between the contractor and Seaway should be signed. When that happens the contractor has no more than16 months to complete construction. That pushes the starting date for running the plant to the winter of 1997.

The latest snags, however, were excruciatingly painful. Environmental permits and assessments took so long in coming that time ran out on the building contractors’ pricing for the project. The time limit also expired on spending the $10.5 million offered by the federal government last year. Seaway negotiated an extension and now see no obstacles ahead.

Added to that good news, Ontario’s plan that all gasoline be made up of five per cent ethanol will coincide with the expected opening date of the plant. The province last month announced that it will also offer grants, based on ethanol production, to supply that new market. Seaway directors penciled out their share: a $7 million annual windfall, they hope.

More good news: the U.S. government, always uneasy with its reliance on oil from the unstable Middle East, is considering huge increases in ethanol requirements in fuel.

"The political climate is favourable," Seaway’s consultant Lee Williams told about 150 people at Seaway’s annual general meeting June 23 at the Finch Community Centre. He added one sour note for some shareholders. The Cornwall plant will buy the cheapest corn it can find, which might not be in eastern Ontario, he said. "Corn can be 70 per cent of the cost of operation."

Seaway president Ed Schouten, was frustrated by the many delays beyond his control. "If it were up to me the shovel would be in the ground tomorrow," he told Farmers Forum. "It’s become a real soap opera. It been so damned maddening."