ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- A rural St. Charles man who heads a trout-fishing group is calling for a major study of the state's growing push for more ethanol from corn or other renewable sources.

Jeff Broberg, president of the Minnesota Trout Association, asked people at the Department of Natural Resources Round Table in St. Cloud last week to sign a petition calling for a generic environmental impact statement on ethanol. His group and one called Olmsted County Concerned Citizens oppose a plant proposed for Eyota because, among other things, they say it would deplete ground water, threaten land, fish and wildlife.

Every gallon of ethanol uses 5 to 6 gallons of water and releases 6 pounds of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. He quoted the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency that says Minnesota now produces about 675 million gallons of ethanol and could increase that to nearly 2 billion gallons in the next several years, Broberg said.

Minnesota has already done major generic impact statements on wood production and feedlots, he said. It's time for one on ethanol. "We need to slow down," he wrote. "We need to question the madness." A moratorium is needed until all answers are known, he said.

Broberg said, however, that this study wouldn't be to condemn all ethanol but find the best places to put plants or the best way to run them or find fuels for them.

The call for the EIS isn't so much anti-ethanol as it is pro-environment, he said.

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