Local Roundup: Air quality permit meeting postponed

The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board postponed a meeting to discuss an appeal of Clovis Ethanol’s air quality permit to Dec. 3, according to state officials.

The New Mexico Environment Department approved the permit for the 108-million-gallon-a-year plant in May.

A petition to appeal the decision was filed by Concerned Citizens for Curry County, the Clovis branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Members of the group said they did not oppose the plant, but its location.

The state board held a two-day public hearing in September and was scheduled to deliberate today on the permit.

Multi-agency narcotics checkpoint planned

A multi-agency narcotics checkpoint will be conducted from noon to 8 p.m. today in Roosevelt County, according to the Roosevelt County Sheriff’s Office.

Agencies participating in the checkpoint will be Roosevelt and Curry County sheriff’s departments, Portales and Clovis police departments and the Motor Transportation Division.

The focus of the checkpoint will be stopping the illegal transportation of narcotics on the highways of New Mexico.

Muleshoe ethanol plant permit granted

DALLAS — The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has granted an air permit for Panda Ethanol’s planned 115 million gallon-per-year ethanol refinery in Muleshoe, according to a company press release.

The facility is designed to refine an estimated 38 million bushels of feedstock-grade corn a year into biofuel. The fuel produced at the Muleshoe plant could displace approximately 2.6 million barrels of foreign oil a year, the release said.

The Muleshoe facility will be engineered to gasify up to 1 billion pounds of cattle manure per year to generate the steam used in the ethanol manufacturing process, the release said.

It is located eight miles northwest of Muleshoe.

Construction is dependent upon financing, additional regulatory approvals and other conditions.