Peter Schorsch
We’ve seen this movie before.
A company presents a smart, safe, common-sense investment — cutting emissions, reducing waste, improving air quality, and boosting jobs — and right on cue, a handful of full-time critics show up to stop it.
You know the type: They never saw a zoning notice they didn’t want to kill.
This time, the setting is Fernandina Beach, and the company is RYAM, a tech company that has powered the local economy for nearly a century by turning Southern pine into high-purity cellulose.
Now, RYAM wants to add equipment at its mill to convert forestry byproducts into second-generation bioethanol, a cleaner, greener fuel produced through fermentation.
Enter the opposition.
It’s anything but a groundswell.
Opponents comprise a puddle of mostly aging activists and environmental justice warriors, whose idea of civic engagement is printing out fringe blog posts and waving them around like arrest warrants.
One of their most quizzical arguments is that ethanol is “highly flammable,” considering RYAM would be repurposing material that they currently burn into an end product that’s more environmentally friendly than the gasoline the opposition burns driving to City Hall to grouse about potential environmental impacts.
They’ve stalled housing, opposed small business permits, and now they’re trying to kneecap clean fuel because they read somewhere that ethanol is “bad.”
Civic engagement is a good thing. But there’s a difference between thoughtful public input and a hijack attempt by the same handful of voices who reflexively say “no” to everything.
In this case, the City of Fernandina Beach appears to have bypassed its own process and rejected RYAM’s application before it was even submitted. There wasn’t a technical review, nor was there an effort to give them a fair shake, not even for the sake of appearances.
Just a pre-baked “no.”
This comes after years of receiving inept legal advice, which has cost taxpayers millions in lawsuits and settlements. But hey, some folks only learn the hard way, and in Fernandina, it seems every day is a school day.
RYAM’s bioethanol amendment doesn’t mandate anything. It doesn’t cost anything. It simply clarifies that ethanol can be produced through a biological process, not “chemical manufacturing” or “chemical refining.”
This is not a controversial definition for anyone who completed 10th-grade biology. It’s also the exact definition used by the EPA, the scientific community, and nearly every federal regulatory agency.
This isn’t politics. It’s basic science.
I’m not sure if Donald Trump can Make America Great Again. But I’m sure we can’t if a handful of gadflies can scare an entire city commission into inaction.
This isn’t about saving the planet. It’s about letting companies take waste and turn it into value. Florida should be the kind of place where doing that doesn’t require a permission slip from a half-dozen residents with nothing to do but complain.
8 comments
Eva Jackson
April 24, 2025 at 2:29 pm
ɢᴏᴏɢʟᴇ ᴘᴀʏꜱ ʙᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ $300 ᴀɴᴅ $500 ᴘᴇʀ ʜᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴏʀ ʀᴇᴍᴏᴛᴇ ᴇᴍᴘʟᴏʏᴍᴇɴᴛ. ɪ ʀᴇᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ $20537 ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜱᴛʀᴀɪɢʜᴛꜰᴏʀᴡᴀʀᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴜɴᴄᴏᴍᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ɪɴ ᴍʏ ᴍᴏꜱᴛ ʀᴇᴄᴇɴᴛ ᴘᴀʏᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ.ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ꜰᴀɴᴛᴀꜱᴛɪᴄ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ꜰᴀɴᴛᴀꜱᴛɪᴄ.
Go ON my ProFILE
tom palmer
April 24, 2025 at 3:35 pm
From what I have read, the main fear is plant explosions, which have happened elsewhere in the US. This is an issue since the proposed plant is in an industrial park fairly close to some residential areas. No word on whether this plant’s operations would get the federal subsidies that occurred in the Midwest with the corn-based ethanol plants. There is also some wordplay at work. Is this a manufacturing plant, which the city code does not allow, or something akin to a brewery, which it may?
Mick Garrett
April 27, 2025 at 6:34 pm
Chemical manufacturing is specifically prohibited within the City of Fernandina Beach and has been a zoning rule for decades and their building proposal was denied. Both beer and some ethanol manufacturing (in this case wood pulp waste from Rayonier’s paper mill) can use fermentation but it remains a manufacturing process. Beer, however, is not a chemical and is ingestible/nonflammable and not explosive. Fuel grade ethanol isn’t ingestible and is a volatile chemical. RYAM’s end product is not a component of beer, it’s ethanol: a component of jet fuel.
Island Resident
April 24, 2025 at 7:10 pm
RYAM is not a tech company. That is not fact. Get with the program – people no longer want to live next to heavy industrial plants. The tax base of the plants is also relatively small compared to any purported benefit. The plants were begun during the Great Depression when factories like that were still built next to residential areas. Now there is a dense resort community and ecologically prioritized estuary surrounding the plant. (Republican voters do care about such things.) I’m a Trump and Desantis and Bean voter and island resident and definitely not an out of touch aging boomer trying to bring back the sixties. There are many like us who will absolutely remember how this is handled politically and see how our resort island is treated. By the way, most of the “jobs on site” are taken by people who don’t live on this island, and many of whom do not even live in the great state of Florida.
Robert Weintraub
April 25, 2025 at 10:51 am
Schorsch is wrong in so many ways. There is a groundswell of opposition to the RYAM ethanol plant. Most people living in Fernandina are strongly opposed to it. It’s not a “handfull of aging activists.” Scientifically, ethanol is a very hazardous, flammable chemical. With a flash point equal to house temperature, there have been many accidental fires and explosions caused by its flammability. Fermentation is a chemical process according to every reliable scientific source you can find.
Mick Garrett
April 27, 2025 at 7:00 pm
According to cjr.org, the publisher of Florida Politics [and author of this diatribe], Peter Schorsch is a former “conservative political consultant.”
“Florida Politics is known to be center of the scale for partisan publishing. Florida Politics publishes both democratic and republican articles. Extensive Enterprises Media owns Florida Politics. The site does not reveal the final owner of Extensive Enterprise Media. Revenue is derived through an advertising model. Extensive Media also owns ContextFlorida.com, an opinion site, Saint Peters Blog, Influence magazine, and Sunburn.” Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/florida-politics/
This is a negative, biased opinion article with unsubstantiated stereotypic language, name-calling commentary about residents Mr. Peter Schorsch has never met, and biased assertions.
Why all the drama, indeed considering Mr. Schorsch doesn’t live/work in Fernandina Beach, FL and ostensibly has zero personal “stake in this issue. As publisher of Florida Politics, Mr. Schorsch should be writing in the center lane in leu of insulting residents of Fernandina Beach.
Phil Ammann
April 27, 2025 at 10:01 pm
As opposed to an “unbiased” opinion article? A no-op-ed?
Jay Little
April 27, 2025 at 11:37 pm
Peter hit the nail on the head with this article. The extreme influx of people and money has priced the middle class off the island. Unless you already were here at least 20yrs ago. The same people would love nothing more than the two plants to close and leave the island. So anything new at the plant, no matter the benefits will be fought against to their last breath.
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