By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

GARYVILLE – An apparently false story which has gotten onto more than one Internet web site has started a flurry of worry about the possibility of an ethanol refinery joining the tank farm scheduled for Garyville.

However, Safeland Storage investor Paul Beaullieu told L’Observateur on Monday that “we have never now, nor ever before, nor plan to in the future, have anything to do with an ethanol plant,” he stated.

Beaullieu expressed outrage that the story had somehow gotten onto web sites, and lately has been surfacing in St. John Parish to spark a rumor that the planned tank farm site will now also host an ethanol refinery.

“It really kills me to hear anything like this, and I’m just trying to figure out how such a thing could have started,” he said.

The rumor took on real speed late this past week as the Ethanol Producer Magazine web site was getting sent to many e-mail addresses, showing a link to a January, 2007 article that stated the Safeland Storage tank farm site was also considering a site for ethanol production.

The piece in the magazine was a 75-word brief in a section about proposed ethanol producers, an editor with Ethanol Producer Magazine told L’Observateur.

The short brief read as follows:

“The Angelina Petroleum Storage Facility will build an ethanol plant on this 432-acre greenfield. Permitting issues are currently being worked out, according to Safeland Storage Manager Paul Beaullieu. The facility will be located near a pipeline, two railroads and a deep-water port, lending it exclusive access for imports and exports. ‘It’s a site that we’re looking for partners on,’ Beaullieu said.”

Surprisingly, Beaullieu was quoted in the magazine, although he told L’Observateur that he never gave any such information.

“I’ve spent $1 million just doing all the things we have to do for a tank farm, including filing for permits, and paying for all the legal work,” he said. “I haven’t spent one penny for anything to do with ethanol, and I wouldn’t even know how to begin doing that.”

Danny Guidry, local spokesman for Safeland Storage, said he believes the incorrect information may have come from the Ethanol Producer Magazine looking at their web site.

On the Safeland site, theangelinagroup.com, there is information about “blending capabilities for ethanol,” and Guidry said it may have been “an honest mistake” that the writer made when seeing that.

“They might have seen the blending service we have, and thought that meant we were going to actually make ethanol. But this just means we mix different fluids, that’s all. And that’s a big difference than actually refining it,” he added.

Beaullieu said he just found out about the web site publications himself when he was informed that a small web site called Industrial Information Resources also carried the same piece. But that web site owner told Beaullieu that he had picked up the story from the Ethanol Producer Magazine web site.

“I told him to do whatever it took to get that thing off there right away, and he told me it had already been done,” Beaullieu said.

Beaullieu did say that the possibility of ethanol being stored on the tank farm was a prospect, but that had always been the case with other crude based products, and had been stated in previous information.

Ethanol Producer Magazine told L’Observateur that the only information they still had about the January, 2007 piece was that it had been written by a staff writer named Lindsey Irwin, who was no longer with their publication. The editor also said there were notes which said the information was obtained from Sam Smedley, who is one of the other investors who has been with Safeland Storage.

“I don’t know how Sam’s name is there either,” Beaullieu said, “but I plan on continuing to look into this and try to find out how they ever got such a thing. All I can tell you right now is that we are a liquid storage facility, and that is all we plan to be.”