(STATEWIDE) Two of Wisconsin's ethanol plants may wind up in court, for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.

Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) has filed notices of intent to sue the Utica Energy ethanol plant near Oshkosh and the Didion Ethanol plant near Cambria. The environmental law group says the two plants have violated the federal Clean Water Act almost 5,000 times, by dumping illegal amounts of chlorine, phosphorus and other chemicals into state waters.

Karen Schapiro heads MEA. She acknowledges some ethanol companies are in a financial pinch.

"The ethanol industry has been beneficiaries of generous subsidies and certainly we're sympathetic to the economic crunch they're in,” she says. “But it doesn't give them license to flout the laws of the environment."

The possible lawsuits irritate Joshua Morby of the Wisconsin Bio Industry Alliance. He says the MEA is a fringe group “whose stated mission is to sue people and stop progress in Wisconsin."

Morby calls the allegations of the plants violating the clean water act "absurd." He says the plants are working with the Wisconsin DNR to reduce any discharges. Morby says the ethanol industry has met with the environmental law group and has offered to work with them. But after sixty days, MEA and the citizen groups they represent may take the two ethanol plants to court.