Des Moines Register
04-30-06
He pushes ag ahead
Bill Couser carries several titles.
The farmer began growing corn and raising cattle on his Nevada farm in 1977.
The president of Lincolnway Energy opens an ethanol plant next month and is
planning another for Des Moines.
The innovator is working with DNR to treat manure runoff and improve water
quality.
JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR
Nevada, Ia. — Bill Couser wears a lot of hats — president of the Lincolnway
Energy ethanol plant here, cattle producer, crop farmer and environmental
innovator.
Rather than see the contradictions in his different roles, Couser, 51, sees a
convergence of interests as he looks at the future of Iowa agriculture.
"The next adventure in the 21st century is going to be finding more value in the
corn we grow," Couser said as he sat in the new offices of Lincolnway Energy.
"We need to figure out how we can use every bit of value in that corn."
Couser was one of the leaders in efforts to build the Lincolnway ethanol plant,
which is scheduled to begin producing 50 million gallons of ethanol a year on
May 22.
He sees a connection between founding an ethanol plant and being the father of
two sons, 19 and 21 years old, whose peers are fighting and dying in the Middle
East.
By making domestically produced ethanol in plants like Lincolnway, Couser said,
the United States can lessen its dependence on foreign oil and help prevent
young people from being sent to war.
Last week, Couser added the title of urban industrialist to his collection of roles.
On April 20, Lincolnway announced plans to build a $225 million ethanol plant on
166 acres in the city of Des Moines' Agrimergent Technology Park on the city's
southeast side.
The new plant will link urban Polk and rural Story counties, Couser said,
"This is huge," Couser said last week after Lincolnway announced its intention to
build the 100-million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant. "The ethanol plant will fit perfect
down there in Polk County, next door to Story County."
The Des Moines City Council agreed April 24 to enter into negotiations with
Lincolnway officials over buying the land.
Drought of 1977
Couser's search for commonality among the different hats he wears began on
the land 3miles north of Nevada that he's farmed since 1977, a drought year that
tested Couser's mettle during his first year as a farmer.
He has molded his farming operation to be a progression of value-added
activities, one phase leading to another.
He raises seed corn, feeds part of his crops to his cattle and turns the rest into
ethanol. He feeds a product of the ethanol-making process called dried distillers
grains to his cattle as a high-protein supplement, and the nutrients from the cattle
manure fertilize his crops.
"So we go full circle, seed crop to row crop, corn to ethanol and dried distillers
grains that come back to the cattle feedlot so every drop of value has been taken
out of that corn," Couser said.
Couser also recognizes that if farmers don't work to solve the water quality
problems they cause, government regulators will try to solve it for them.
That led Couser to take part in an experiment to handle the runoff from the 2,000
head of cattle being fed to market weight at the Couser Cattle Co.
"Hopefully, we've come up with some new ideas," said Couser, who is consulting
with Iowa State University experts, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources
and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to work on the project.
As Couser sees it, answers to the problem are needed soon.
"This feedlot thing has really gotten ugly in the press," he said. "Hopefully, with
some of these new ideas, we can comply with regulations and it won't take a
million dollars to do it."
Robert Burns, an agricultural engineer at Iowa State University, said Couser
is one of five Iowa livestock producers working on experimental ways to deal with
runoff from their feedlots by using an alternative to big manure storage basins.
Instead, Couser and the others are using a series of smaller basins lined with
grass that take up some of the nutrients of the manure as it moves through the
system.
Couser is also using fast-growing, hybrid willow trees to soak up some of the
nutrients. The trees will be burned by a neighbor to heat his house.
"Runoff isn't a four-letter word, but it's nasty," said Couser. "The nutrients in the
manure have value and we need to get all the value out of it, just like an ethanol
plant can get value out of our corn."
Couser also is working with Jeff Lorimor and Stewart Melvin, two retired Iowa
State agricultural engineers who now work for Curry-Wille & Associates in Ames.
Burns is monitoring feedlot runoff to show if the system is removing possible
pollutants as designed.
Burns said it's too soon to say if the on-farm systems are working, but smallscale experimental systems developed by Lorimor have shown that they can.
He said it's essential to have producers like Couser willing to test the systems in
real-world conditions on the farm.
"We're really guinea-pigging Bill," Burns said. "It's been a burden on him, but he's
the best producer I've ever worked with. He really, really cares."
Gene Tinker, animal feeding operations coordinator for the Iowa Department of
Natural Resources, has been working with Couser and the other farmers who are
testing the alternative systems.
"There's no research that indicates they will work," Tinker said. "So, it was kind of
a leap of faith, but one of the reasons we have faith in Bill is that he is an
extremely good manager. He's very progressive and very innovative and if things
don't work at first, he's going to make sure they work."
Tinker said Couser cares about results and common-sense solutions.
"Other producers might see the DNR as wearing a black hat, but Bill looks at the
DNR as a white hat because we want to work with him as a partner," Tinker said.
"There are not as many producers like Bill as I'd like to see."
Being out front was the reason Couser got involved in helping organize the
Lincolnway Energy ethanol plant.
As a member of the Heart of Iowa Cooperative board of directors, Couser and
others became concerned when interest rose about starting an ethanol plant in
Nevada.
Instead of allowing the other ethanol plant to be built, Couser and others at the
Heart of Iowa organized a counter-effort to keep their local co-op viable by
making Heart of Iowa the source for the ethanol plant's corn.
"It was important to me to keep the cooperative alive," Couser said.
After deciding to organize an equity drive for an ethanol plant, the Lincolnway
directors did things differently than other plant developers, which were organized
as farmer-owned cooperatives.
Farmers who bought stock in those ethanol cooperatives also bought an
obligation to deliver a certain amount of corn based on the number of shares they
owned.
The goal of those first cooperatives was to develop another market for their
members' corn, not to make money from the sale of ethanol.
But Lincolnway was structured as a limited liability company, open to nonfarmers,
and there was no corn delivery obligation because Heart of Iowa would supply all
the corn the ethanol plant needed.
As Couser and the other directors explained at equity drive meetings held around
central Iowa, Lincolnway wanted to make money off the sale of ethanol, not corn.
Another reason to open Lincolnway to other investors was that the pool of
farmers with money to invest in ethanol was evaporating, so Lincolnway had to
go to Main Street businesses and others in the community.
"So, we had to step outside the ring," Couser said. "School bus drivers and Main
Street businesses all play a part in the community just like farmers."
Lincolnway raised $37 million from 942 investors in what was then a record 53
days.
"We did it with local funds," Couser said. "We've got a community-owned plant
with no big outside guns to control the board."
The new plant in Des Moines, if it makes it to the equity-raising stage, also will be
financed with local money first, Couser said.
New technologies
He and the other organizers of the project each devoted about 50 hours a week
to organize the Lincolnway effort. "I thought it would get a little less timeconsuming now that the plant is almost up and running, but now we're thinking
about the future, bringing new technologies online to get more ethanol out of
each bushel of corn. We're talking about making new products from corn and
developing new markets locally."
Despite the time they spent getting the Lincolnway plant up and running, Couser
said, the directors kept their priorities in line. "Nobody missed a ballgame, a
family event or a church activity," he said. "Our families come first."
Lincolnway is an energy company, Couser said, not just an ethanol producer.
"We want to produce not just ethanol, but biodiesel fuel and energy from wind
and biomass," he said.
More needs to be done, he said.
"People say I'm crazy, but I'm just old enough that I'm probably going to miss all
the fun stuff that's coming," Couser said. "I guess I'll have to be satisfied that we
set something up so that the younger people can build on it."