News Headlines

Bio Fuel Failure

Six more workers have been targeted for layoffs at the Cherokee County Landfill and Recycling Center in northwest Iowa.

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Reporter: Associated Press

Six more workers have been targeted for layoffs at the Cherokee County Landfill and Recycling Center in northwest Iowa.

That will leave only five people on the payroll, down from 25. Fourteen workers were dismissed in April.

The Sioux City Journal says the landfill has been reeling since the county's entrepreneurial effort backfired. The county bought equipment to turn garbage into pellets that could be sold for fuel. Among the expected customers was a planned biodiesel plant in Marcus.

But the plant wasn't built, and other buyers for the pellets couldn't be found.

That left the county with $3.2 million in bond debt and a pellet machine that has been idled.