The mayor of Oshawa wants Prince Charles to lend an ear to his anti-corn refinery campaign.

Charles, owner of a grape-fuelled sports car, is a “huge environmentalist” who could help stop a proposed ethanol plant from ruining the city’s waterfront, says John Henry.

He’s written to Britain’s heir to the throne, along with eco-friendly heavyweights David Suzuki, novelist Margaret Atwood and Robert Kennedy Jr., asking them to join his fight against the facility that would turn corn into ethanol fuel.

The prince, who had his beloved 40-year-old Aston Martin converted to run on biofuel made from surplus wine, recently criticized the amount of corn that goes into fuel tanks in the U.S.

The federal government, which is considering funding the 12-hectare, $185 million plant, must be told that a “giant factory with huge smokestacks” doesn’t belong on Oshawa’s “spectacular” waterfront, said Henry, noting there are more suitable locations in Durham Region.

While he’s not against biofuels, he said the site on Crown land adjacent to recreational areas and wetlands makes no sense because “they don’t grow corn in Oshawa harbour.”

The plant, first proposed by FarmTech Energy Corp. in 2008, would produce up to 210 million litres of ethanol a year and generate 200 truck trips a day.

Calling it a “monstrosity” that would affect people and wildlife in the Second Marsh wetlands, environmental activist Brian Brasier listed pollution, noise and traffic among his objections.

One truck every two minutes just five metres from the waterfront trail would have serious consequences, said Brasier, executive director of Friends of Second Marsh, one of several opposed groups.

Henry, with unanimous support from councillors, has launched a letter-writing campaign to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which has released an environmental assessment on the proposal. The deadline for comments is July 28.

Oshawa’s mayor waged a similar public battle against the province’s plans to end the Highway 407 extension in his city.

If time had allowed, he said, he would have liked to get recent royal visitors William and Kate onside in the corn refinery battle. Oshawa already has the right slogan: “Prepare to be A-maized.”

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