Entrepreneur says fire destroyed his bait worm operation

MICHAEL, Ill. -- A would-be bait-worm farmer said he saw his business' future go up in smoke when the building in which he was raising the slithery creatures burned down.

Jonah White, 35, estimates some 200 million worms were lost when the 15,000-square-foot building, packed with stackable plastic trays of worm beds, caught fire and gutted the structure.

"All I could do was stand there and see 200 million worms go to an honorable death," said White, of Michael, about 45 miles northwest of Alton in Calhoun County. He said the worm farm was in its first week of production.

White said Friday that authorities had not yet determined the cause of the blaze. He said "truck loads" of a highly flammable Canadian peat moss used for worm bedding were stored in the building when the fire broke out Monday.

White said he began researching how to build a worm farm five years ago and started construction of the facility in 2001.

"It's not the money that bummed me out, it's all the time I had spent on the project that is simply lost time now," he said.