Wright, KS ? A site east of Wright has been chosen as a potential location for a new ethanol plant.

Boot Hills Biofuels, of Liberal, told the Ford County Commission on Monday that it wants to build an ethanol plant capable of generating at least 110 million gallons of ethanol.

Commission Chairman Kim Goodnight said the ethanol plant would be good for Ford County, but the company will have to address the plant’s effect on the water supply.

“There’s one in Seward County, one in Finney County and they’re all going to be coordinated together,” he said. “That’s another thing that I see as being something positive. Where normally you would think that we’d be in competition with some of these other plants, they’ll actually be working together on purchases of grain and other things.”

Boot Hill Biofuels is a partner with the Seward County-based group Conestoga Energy Partners, which said earlier this year it wanted to build an ethanol plant somewhere in Ford County.

Conestoga also is involved in the ethanol plant projects in Seward and Finney counties.

If the plans are approved, construction of the $185 million plant would start sometime between April and July 2007, and the plant should be operating by fall of 2008, said Boot Hill Biofuels President Gary Harshberger.

He said the plant would employ between 40 and 45 people with an estimated payroll of $2 million. The site near Wright would be the best location for an ethanol plant because it is close to a grain source, water and transportation, he said.

Joann Knight, vice president of the Dodge City/Ford County Development Corp., said the plant would be one of the largest economic development projects in Ford County in several years.

Boot Hill Biofuels will apply to the Kansas Department of Commerce and Housing for a $750,000 Community Development Block Grant, which will help the company develop a water program.

Harshberger said investment details for the plant still are uncertain, but supporters want it to be locally owned.