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On Feb. 12, plant officials reported the accidental discharge that happened after a frozen pipe on the side of a large digester tank burst, releasing manure from the nearby feedlot and thin stillage from the ethanol plant.

Because the plant uses treated seed instead of harvested grain, it’s likely the thin stillage is contaminated with pesticides, which have been detected in the plant’s lagoons and other waste byproducts at high concentrations.

Flint Hills Resources, a fuel and chemical company based in Wichita, Kan., expanded its Shell Rock plant, brought in new equipment - including an eight-story dryer - and hired more employees for the Maximized Stillage Co-products, or MSC, process.

That technology, developed by Fluid Quip Technologies of Cedar Rapids, extracts protein from the whole stillage that remains after ethanol processing and makes a 50 percent protein feed for pets, fish, dairy cows, poultry and swine.

But the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports there still is fiber, protein and fat left in the corn by-product, or stillage.