NEWTON, IL, JASPER COUNTY SEEK TO STIMULATE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ECONOMY VIA $400-MILLION RENEWABLE FUELS PLANT;
ADD HEALTHCHECK PROTOCOL FOR COVID-19-FREE WORKPLACES FOR
CITY, COUNTY, STATE, COUNTRY
Innovative HealthCheck Protocol Advances COVID-19 Free Workforce
Largest Opportunity Zone Project in Country
Benefits Include Accelerating Economic Growth, Advancing Environmental
Objectives and Helping to Solve a Global Health Crisis
May 12, 2020 – The City of Newton, IL, Jasper County, and St. Joseph Renewable
Fuels, LLC announced plans to build a $400-million renewable diesel plant in Southern
Illinois that envisions utilizing innovative technologies and a new healthcare protocol to
test and certify a COVID-19 free workforce. The 40-acre site in Newton, IL is within a
federally-designated Opportunity Zone, and is believed to be one of the largest projects
proposed under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that was designed to revive
economically-distressed communities in the United States.
Plans for the proposed facility include showcasing proactive steps a small city with a
population of 3,000 can take to solve a complex health crisis through a new initiative
called HealthCheck. The testing concept being introduced will help bring a critical facility
into operation. This innovative approach ultimately could be scalable to a larger impact
at county, state, and national levels, both domestically and worldwide. HealthCheck can
help solve a larger need for mitigation solutions that will allow the country to reopen
from the COVID-19 lockdown that affects virtually an entire workforce.
“We plan to breathe new life into Newton by adding a major employer, creating good
paying jobs, advancing green efforts, while delivering a healthy local workforce and
community,” said Newton Mayor Mark Bolander. “This will be accomplished through the
introduction of leading-edge solutions and the formation of new partnerships that can
help us fight the COVID-19 outbreak.”
Bolander notes he quickly recognized the benefits of the ideas being suggested by the
St. Joseph Renewable Fuels team. “We welcome a project of this magnitude because it
is a game changer for Newton as an Opportunity Zone,” said Bolander. “It will bring jobs
closer to where people live, and I’m confident we’re doing something positive to
promote economic expansion and protect the health of our community. If we do this
right, it will be easy to be supportive and feel good about it.” Opportunity Zones are
areas identified by the federal government as distressed and in need of transformation
via economic development, investment and revitalization. Congress approved the
legislation as part of the tax-reform bill in 2017. Opportunity Zone investments are
primarily a way for investors to defer capital gains taxes for a period of time.
Jasper County Board Chairman Ron Heltsley stated, “This is a tremendous project and
the county is excited to have it in our community.”
The team involved in the project includes New York-based specialty finance firm, Lance
Capital and its New Zealand joint venture partner, Lance-Kamaka Capital Ltd, which
serves as a lender on the St. Joseph Renewable Fuels plant and is the sponsor of the
HealthCheck protocol concept. Other partners include Cyberus Labs, which delivers the
technology component of the healthcare platform; and a joint-venture between
McDermott and Chevron Oil, which will be involved in the core technology of the
renewable fuels produced.
Mayor Bolander said, “Newton and the Jasper County Economic Development team
(JEDI) envision that as the state and nation focuses on reopening, this innovative
solution conceived in Newton and Jasper County can serve as a catalyst that ignites a
movement to other cities, states and even across the globe.”
A critical component of the proposed plant in Newton is the new HealthCheck initiative,
which is expected to help deliver long term disease management and mitigation
solutions for COVID-19 and other potential future health threats. The secure in-home
testing concept app developed in partnership with Cyberus Labs delivers a viable
solution to the COVID-19 pandemic and can be used to re-open critical buildings and
workplaces throughout the United States. In a similar fashion, Lance Capital is also
working to apply the HealthCheck protocol to the re-opening of major buildings in New
York City and other hard hit metropolitan areas, while Lance-Kamaka Capital is
developing concepts to re-open New Zealand to tourism and international commerce.
The environmental benefits of the Saint Joseph Renewable Fuels facility are supportive
of efforts to promote renewable fuels, protect the environment and reduce CO2.
Additionally, the plant will bring new sources of renewable fuels to metropolitan, rural,
and underserved communities. The facility will consume waste fats and greases from a
region spanning 1,000 miles around Newton, which would otherwise be landfilled or
emptied into sewer drains. The plant will convert the waste into 90 million gallons of
diesel and naphtha fuel annually, as well as seven million gallons of technical grade
glycerin.
“The fuel production technologies licensed to us and being deployed at the proposed
facility in Newton promote sustainable practices,” said Geoffrey Hirson, CEO of St.
Joseph Renewable Fuels, LLC. “The benefits realized transfer to both the local and
global environment by producing renewable, reduced carbon fuels using carbon neutral
or net-carbon negative production methods.”
Richard Podos, CEO of Lance Capital, adds, “The Saint Joe renewable diesel plant will
drive economic growth in the city and county through $400 million of hard and soft
construction costs, the revival of a shuttered site, and the production of ASTM-D975
renewable diesel. We will be advancing the project via tax incentives being offered by
the city, and we also will be seeking state and federal support,” he added, noting 100
permanent jobs will be created in the Newton community plus 200 construction jobs for
the duration of the two year construction, as well as 300 trucking jobs for the State of
Illinois once the plant is commissioned and operating.
City and county officials are working to offer the HealthCheck system to other
community stakeholders including the county power plant, the Jasper County school
district, which remains on the front-lines providing meals to the county despite being
closed due to statewide COVID-19 orders, local police, fire and emergency responders
and front-line healthcare workers, as well as major essential retailers who have
remained open for business throughout the emergency.
“This HealthCheck system will allow the people in our community to get tested, give
them confidence they are not going to infect others, while providing us the workforce
needed to stimulate economic growth,” said Amber Volk, Jasper County’s Economic
Development Coordinator. “The addition of a new major employer in our Opportunity
Zone will fuel that expansion with quality jobs and deliver benefits to other community
stakeholders. If we can encourage a critical mass of testing through the HealthCheck
program it could help create a firewall for our community to protect against future
outbreaks.”
The core of the individual HealthCheck solution is based upon a new generation of
cyber secure, password free data exchange, which allows for secure daily infection
testing and app-level reporting with an affordable and logistically sound approach. The
HealthCheck protocol will use a rapid response in-home test device for daily tests that
take about 15 minutes to generate results. Each testing device will be provided as part
of the St. Joseph Renewable Fuels facility development plan, with tests costing about
$25.
The results are secure, real-time and produce a “Green” rating for non-infectious
individuals and a “Red” rating for non-tested, testing-overdue, or infectious individuals.
User permissions are required, making the entire system HIPAA and GDPR compliant,
as well as meeting OSHA requirements for employee safety in the workplace. The user
cannot manipulate the test results and the test evidence comes from an irrefutable third-
party HIPAA compliant database. The HealthCheck system would be used to allow the
individual tested access to places of work, schools, restaurants, airports, sports
facilities, and other places of business.
Mayor Bolander concludes “St. Joseph Renewable Fuels, HealthCheck, the City of
Newton, the County of Jasper, JEDI and Jasper Unit 1 are in agreement that a project
of this size will be a ‘game changer’ for the community and this region. We hope to have
more press releases with updates coming soon.”
Geoff Hirson is the same person who while doing business as powerdyne, signed a contract with Terre Haute in 2014 to build a 200 million dollar plant that would turn sewer sludge into biodiesel, same contract also promised the city of Terre Haute a yearly 3 million dollar “good will” payment. Neither ever happened.
Geoff Hirson signed a contract with the city of Newton in 2015 to build a 100 million gallon per year biodiesel plant and give the city of Newton a yearly 1 million dollar “good will” payment. Neither ever happened.
Now in 2020the proposal is a 400 million dollar renewable fuel plant that he wants to build for Newton and throw in Covid 19 testing.
I am old enough to remember a time when reporters did actual reporting, they would take something that was of interest and actually dig into the details and independently search out ALL of the facts then report the facts as found, Those days are long gone, now all you get is 1 side of a story.
Thank you Larry for your stroll down memory lane when reporters did reporting.
Personally, as a one woman business, with the occasional help from my children and friends, sometimes there just isn’t enough of me to go around and press releases get released just as a press release.
Add in the fact that I currently am on the way back from visiting my daughter who is deployed in Northern Illinois with the National Guard and it just didn’t seem to be the most important aspect of my life at the moment…
But again, thank you for your input and I will honestly take that into consideration over the next few days.