EAST DUBUQUE, Ill. &8212; Just 25 miles west of East Dubuque, Ill., stands the now famous field of dreams, the site of the 1988 film about a man who carves a baseball field into an Iowa cornfield that brings back the legends of baseball for a legendary game.

When their airplane landed on a small airstrip bordered by fields of corn, local officials had their eyes on another field of dreams &8212; Rentech&8217;s East Dubuque site for a coal gasification plant.

At the invitation of the Denver, Colo., company, Adams County Supervisor&8217;s President Darryl Grennell, county board attorney Bob Latham, Natchez Mayor Phillip West and Natchez-Adams Economic Development Authority Director Jeff Rowell came to East Dubuque Monday to see the progress of Rentech&8217;s efforts to build a coal gasification plant in East Dubuque.

&8220;We have three overall missions to this visit,&8221; Grennell said Monday. &8220;First is to see the progress of the plant. Second, is to get an update on the Adams County site&8230; and third, is to try to establish a relationship between East Dubuque, Galena, Ill., and the Natchez-Adams County area.&8221;

Officials from Rentech agreed. The main reason for the three-day visit is to create a relationship between the two communities that will have one thing in common &8212; a Rentech plant.

In 2004, Rentech began the process to buy Royster-Clark Nitrogen Inc, which owns a fertilizer plant in East Dubuque. The company is in the process of converting the fertilizer plant into a coal gasification plant.

The plant would make diesel fuel from coal and petroleum coke by converting the raw material to a gas called syngas. The syngas would then be converted to a liquid through a cooling process that would create a clean burning fuel.

The company hopes to build a similar plant in Natchez. Investing between $650 million and $750 million, the company hopes to build the plant by 2010.

The two plants would be the first of its kind in the nation.

EDA officials have said that the construction of plant alone could produce up to 1,500 jobs over four years.

West said that while he wants to get an update on where Rentech is in respect to the Natchez project, he also wants to see the East Dubuque plant to get a better understanding of what is in store for Natchez.

&8220;This is something (the city) is depending on a great deal,&8221; West said. &8220;It can be a great contribution toward a positive future for Natchez, Adams County and the entire region.