Seaway should call their lawyers
and Cornwall should wake up
Cornwall city council is firm: they want Seaway ethanol out

The city of Cornwall is demanding land back from Seaway Grain Processors. Seaway board members are looking at their options. If I were on the board, I would be meeting with my lawyer to see if my options included suing the city of Cornwall. The land deal was this: Seaway bought the land 11 years ago and Cornwall has the option to buy it back for 90 per cent of the sale price, if it were not developed for an ethanol plant. Seaway has asked for extensions and the extensions have been granted.

Cornwall should have considered one of two things:
1. Allow for a proper timeline to terminate the land deal, which means giving Seaway a chance to get its final $10 million in financing.

2. Allow Seaway to stay on the 23 acres north of the city since Seaway is paying $38,000 in property taxes and the city has no other plan for the land.

But the city of Cornwall can’t get rid of Seaway fast enough. So fast in fact that there was no warning, no reasonable notice. Seaway was on the verge of final financing when the city called a meeting and told Seaway it was getting the boot for "real estate" reasons. Seaway asked for a second meeting to argue its case. At that meeting last month, Cornwall city council found a new concern. After 11 years of dealing with Seaway, city council is suddenly worried about odour. Odour? Talk about pulling a fast one. Real estate meetings at council are held behind closed doors. So, now that the doors are closed the whine about odour hits the fan. But the odour argument was dealt with more than one year ago. A group called Clean-Air Cornwall already derailed the ethanol project once with shrieks about odour. The project was put on hold. Cornwall officials visited two Michigan plants and their worries ended. The Ministry of Environment, which is by no means quick to provide permits, later granted an environmental permit to the Seaway project. For councillor Guy Leger to whine that Seaway should be evicted because it has been at this project for 14 years is a red-herring. Big projects take time. All Leger had to do was pick up the phone, call Seaway president Alain Leduc and inquire as to how close they are to the final deal. Really, Mr. Leger, who cares if Seaway has been at this for 14 years or 47? The city is getting paid $38,000 in taxes from Seaway each year for doing absolutely nothing. There isn’t another buyer for the Seaway land and most of the industrial park is grassland, bustling with field mice.  All of Seaway’s permits are in place but thanks to government delays and Clean-Air Cornwall, Seaway has had to hunt up another $10 million to pay the building contractor because the delay has increased costs. Seaway maintains it is only weeks away from its final financing deal and construction can begin. Cornwall’s position, however, is: keep your $38,000 a year, we prefer field mice. I’ve also heard the argument that there isn’t enough room for two ethanol plants in eastern Ontario, so one has to go. That’s baloney. It would be a great day for agriculture if both Seaway and Greenfield Ethanol were running their plants along the St. Lawrence River. As long as there’s a market for corn, farmers will plant it. And if there’s not enough on our side, there’s plenty of U.S. corn. That’s why Seaway and Greenfield have plans to build along the St. Lawrence River.  The time to build is now. Federal funding is willing to match funding from farmers, as well as kick in 10 cents on every litre of ethanol produced.  Meantime, there is an odour in Cornwall and it’s not from ethanol.