Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,
In response to Kurt Johnson’s March 27 Op-Ed where he chides the Hamilton County P&Z vote on March 19 to “deny” the Synergen Green Energy request for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to build a sizable anhydrous ammonia plant along Highway 34. The vote was justified given lack of definitive operational plans to alleviate justified citizen concerns that have NOT been sufficiently addressed. These include Water impacts to the Ogallala Aquifer that must be analyzed by an unbiased professional not employed by Synergen (to that point: their analysis cut off at year 2018 excluding the last 6 years of drought conditions), Wastewater disposal was left up in the air with three options to include reinjection into the aquifer (hopefully never!), run it down the creek (may not be an option) or send the 500K gallons per day to the Aurora city treatment plant (eventual capacity issues as the city grows?) and SPP Power Pool impacts (reliability and rate impacts to citizens), how this facility will expand beyond year-one capacity over the life of the anhydrous ammonia plant, as well as traffic safety on Highway 34, noise, dust and emergency response and public notification in the event of a catastrophic chemical release.
I attended the P&Z meeting at the request of county residents having been in the area on other unrelated business. I read some 56 pages earlier in the day that included the Marvin Planning Report. Was Mr. Johnson there? Has spent any time talking to impacted landowners or concerned citizens? From the crowd reaction, it was obvious more folks in attendance were in opposition to the project given what information has been presented to them thus far by Synergen along with a number of contradictions and murky statements of generalities regarding important issues.
Mr. Johnson’s last paragraph says it all and is “precisely” WHY the CUP was denied, i.e. more research and investigation needs to be done because Synergen made a case that lacked transparency, details on impacts to vitally important resources and infrastructure and put it on the volunteer P&Z members do determine the technical merits and impacts of a very complex biochemical plant! Far too many unanswered questions that should have ALL been worked out ahead of asking for the issuance of a CUP. They put the “cart before the horse” on too many critical/vital and economically impactful issues that could be detrimental to citizens of Hamilton County and the City of Aurora.
From Nebraska Governor Pillen’s January 2024 State-of-the-State Address: “But we must make sure we are not giving our topsoil away by giving incentives to foreign companies who view Nebraska merely as a conduit for cheap electricity, free water, and cheap labor.”
So now you have a wealthy developer expediting their way into a state/region seeking to realize millions/billions in taxpayer dollars while they and their families will NEVER suffer ANY of the negative/detrimental impacts or unintended consequences. Economic Development is supposed to result in almost entirely in positive upside benefits to a community NOT short-term benefits to a select few while exposing the greater area to potentially detrimental negative consequences over the life of the project. I encourage the County of Hamilton and the City of Aurora to step back and do the necessary due diligence to address the near-term and evolving longer term consequences of a biochemical plant that will be a long-term neighbor owned-operated by a company wholly-owned by India investors.
Curtis Jundt,
Energy engineer/energy economist
Bismarck, ND