From the Argus Leader:
The head of a group opposing the planned Hyperion oil refinery in Union County suggests it might really be a front for a series of landfills to bury trash from the East Coast - information that surely will add more fuel to a public hearing on the refinery that is glowing white hot.
The Union County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold the hearing today on Hyperion's request to rezone 3,800 acres from agricultural use to a planned development for the refinery and an accompanying power plant.
Jason Quam, president of Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution, at a news conference Tuesday said his look into Hyperion's officers shows "they have no experience in refining. But these same people have a great deal of experience in garbage dumps."
Associates of Hyperion Chairman and CEO Albert Huddleston in the early 1990 spent four years unsuccessfully trying to develop a 360-acre landfill in Denton County, Texas, through the company Sentry Environmental.
Hyperion Spokesman Eric Williams calls that investment coincidental and not related to the effort to build a refinery. He maintains "we are in the site selection process for an Energy Center," and takes issue with Quam's characterization.
One of the project directors, Corky Frank, has worked in the oil industry for 40 years, "much of that working directly with refineries," Williams says.
Quam says one of the permitted uses in Hyperion's request for a planned development is landfilling. Others are for the refinery and power plant, ethanol and biofuels plants, manufacturing, gravel mining, road, rail and air support and residential housing.
Quam and James Abourezk, a lawyer representing another group opposed to the refinery, Save Union County, say if the planned development is approved, landfills would be a stand-alone permitted use.
However Dennis Henze, Union County land use administrator, says the uses Hyperion has requested do not stand alone but only would be permitted as they affect the development and operation of a Hyperion energy center.
Before Hyperion can build, the planned development must be recommended by the planning and zoning commission, approved by the county commission and ratified by Union County voters.
In Quam's scenario, Hyperion gets the planned development and the permitted uses, including landfills, and gains "a valuable piece of property. Huddleston could easily sell that off and make a tidy little profit."
Williams maintains "Hyperion and its fellow investors are perfectly positioned to finance the Energy Center," and "Hyperion has no intentions - none - of selling the Hyperion Energy Center now or in the future."
