EPA Region 7 Issues Notice of Violation to Grain Processing Corporation, Inc., of Muscatine, Iowa, for Clean Air Act Issues

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7

901 N. Fifth St., Kansas City, KS 66101

Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Nine Tribal Nations

EPA Region 7 Issues Notice of Violation to Grain Processing Corporation, Inc., of Muscatine, Iowa, for Clean Air Act Issues

Contact Information: Chris Whitley, 913-551-7394, whitley.christopher@epa.gov

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., March 27, 2012) - EPA has issued a notice of violation to Grain Processing Corporation, Inc. (GPC), alleging the company has violated the Iowa State Implementation Plan and the federal Clean Air Act for issues related to construction and operating permits issued for its facility at Muscatine, Iowa.

EPA Region 7 has coordinated with the State of Iowa on the notice of violation, which is separate from a civil lawsuit filed December 1, 2011, by the Iowa attorney general, which alleges that GPC's facility violated the state's air pollution laws.

GPC’s plant at 1600 Oregon Street in Muscatine processes corn into ethanol, corn sweeteners and beverage alcohol.

EPA’s notice of violation to GPC specifically alleges that between 2007 and 2011, its facility repeatedly violated limits on air emissions opacity that were set forth in the company’s 1995 amended construction permit and 2003 operating permit. The notice further alleges GPC failed to notify the Iowa Department of Natural Resources of the opacity exceedances, and failed to address the exceedances in its annual compliance certifications for the years 2007 through 2011.

EPA’s notice to GPC does not address penalties, but indicates the Agency will consider additional enforcement action, which could include penalties, to ensure the facility complies with applicable laws and regulations. The notice can be viewed online at www.epa.gov/region7/newsevents/legal.

The notice was accompanied by an official request for information, which seeks details of GPC’s compliance with the Facility Response Plan requirements and Spill Prevention and Countermeasures Control requirements of the federal Clean Water Act. Information provided by the company in response to EPA’s request will be used by the Agency in evaluating GPC’s compliance. GPC’s response to EPA’s information request is due within 15 days.

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For Some Internet Start-Ups, a Failure Is Just the Beginning

The following is an excerpt from a January 18 New York Times article with the above title.

For Some Internet Start-Ups, a Failure Is Just the Beginning

By JENNA WORTHAM

Every entrepreneur hopes to start the next big thing. But sometimes the first try doesn’t go as planned.

Bradford Shellhammer remembers the exact moment he realized his fledgling Web start-up, Fabulis, a review site and social network geared toward gay men, was a flop. Last November, he and Jason Goldberg, one of his co-founders, flew to London, expecting to hold a festive party for their users there. Instead they found themselves among a sparse crowd at a tacky club in Soho, listening to an off-key singer doing show tunes and being served overpriced drinks by shirtless bartenders.

“No one showed up!” said Mr. Shellhammer, burying his face in his hands at the memory. “It was so awful. We were just like, ‘What are we doing?’ ”

After that disaster, Mr. Shellhammer and Mr. Goldberg laid off more than half of their employees, threw out the code they had written and changed course. Six months later, they introduced a high-end e-commerce site called Fab.com.

Theirs is just one example of a start-up that decided to cut its losses and pivot — choosing an entirely new direction in the hopes of transforming a dud of a business into one that might have a shot at success.

To pivot is, essentially, to fail gracefully. While the term has been in the start-up lexicon for decades, it is coming up more often in the current Internet boom, as entrepreneurs find that many investors are willing to keep the money flowing even if a start-up takes a hard left turn.

“Ideas are like lightning in a bottle, so if the company is small enough and didn’t seem to capture lightning on their first try, it makes sense to try again,” said Ben Horowitz, one of the founders of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. “The art of the pivot is to do it fast and early. The older and bigger the business, the harder it is to change directions.”

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