Second suit challenges ethanol project in U.P.

MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) -- Critics of a refinery planned for the Upper Peninsula have filed a second lawsuit against the project. Larry Klein and the Sierra Club claim the U.S. Energy Department failed to follow federal environmental law when it approved the refinery near Kinross. Frontier Renewable Resources will use a method of breaking down wood into sugars that ferment and become ethanol. Plans calls for construction to begin next spring, with ethanol production starting in 2013. The lawsuit in federal court in Marquette says the government did not examine all the potential environmental impacts. The plant would use about 560,000 tons of pulpwood a year from public and private lands within a 150-mile radius of Kinross. Published: Mon, Jan 16, 2012