On Saturday afternoon, on a whim, I drove out to the Island to see what remained of the former KiOR plant.
As I made the turn onto the asphalt road that leads back to the site, I noticed the parking lot at Baldor was about half-full, a sure sign of industry and the only one I would see.
A trailer that sits just outside the 28-acre KiOR property appears to be abandoned now. It is the only structure that remains intact.
It was quiet and I was obviously the only person at the site, both of which lent a sense of mystery to the visit as I peered on what was once a crowded collection of concrete and steel towers, buildings, tanks, conveyers and mountains of wood-chips that were to be converted into bio-fuel.
Six years ago, the company broke ground on this site amid much fanfare. This was break-through technology at a time when gas prices ranged as high as $3 per gallon. The company had already made agreements with such companies as FedEx, Hunt Oil and Weyerhaeuser to provide bio-fuel and its initial public offering had provided $150 million investments. The company said it was already generating 67 gallons of fuel per ton of wood fiber, a claim it was never able to live up to once production started. The company started production at the $200 million facility in November 2012, but ceased operations about a year later, having never come close to fulfilling its projections. KiOR filed bankruptcy in November 2014 and in October 2015 the facility was sold at auction.
If you want to see what a $69 million taxpayer bath looks like, drive out to the site and consider the ruins. That’s the amount Mississippi taxpayers lost when the company managed to pay just $6 million of a $75 million loan by the Mississippi Development Authority.
When the facility was sold off — for about $5 million total — the agreement was that all the equipment would be removed down to the concrete.
That job ended about two weeks ago, according to Lowndes County Port Authority Director Will Sanders.
But the terms of the deal didn’t mean the site would be reduced to a flat stretch of concrete.
Instead, there are concrete posts and pillars, some as tall as 20-feet high, along with the stone skeletons of buildings and other structures.
Some pillars stand in odd formations and you wonder if the mystery of Stonehenge is that it, too, was once a bio-fuels plant.
Viewed from a distance, it’s almost as though you have stumbled upon the ruins of some ancient civilization.
If it weren’t for the waste of taxpayer dollars it represents, the site would be pretty cool, actually.
How long the site will exist in its current condition is difficult to say. Sanders said the port authority is talking to contractors about removing the concrete, but it may eventually be put out to bid.
That can’t come too soon for the Golden Triangle Development LINK and its CEO Joe Max Higgins, whose plans are to market the KiOR site along with adjoining property for an almost 100-acre industrial site.
For now, though, the ruins stand as a reminder that the state must be wise in how it invests taxpayer money.
If ever there was a case to be made against the state’s penchant for reckless, even desperate, pursuit of industry, KiOR stands as a stark example.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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