Crews Clean Up Corn Mash Spill At Minn. Plant

CLAREMONT, Minn. (AP) -- Employees have finished cleaning up after a fermentation tank collapsed in southern Minnesota, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of corn mash.

The tank collapsed early Saturday at Al-Corn Clean Fuels in Claremont.

Al-Corn CEO Randy Doyle tells the Post-Bulletin that about 420,000 gallons of mash spilled, and about 100,000 gallons got out of the building -- but most stayed on Al-Corn land.

Doyle says most of the mash in the building was recovered and is being turned into ethanol.

The collapse drained nearly all the mash from the tank and another connected to it. Mash is part of the process used to turn corn into ethanol.

No one was hurt. A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokeswoman says none of the corn mash apparently got into surface or ground water.

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