Tharaldson Ethanol Plant Joins Opposition to North Dakota Soybean Crushing Project

by Jeff Beach (InForUm) The North Dakota Soybean Processors plant at Casselton, North Dakota, is expected to crush 42.5 million bushels of soybeans in the first year and is a joint venture between the Minnesota Soybean Processors and Louisiana-based CGB Enterprises.

Some Casselton residents have been campaigning against a proposed soybean crushing plant , saying it would be too close to town. Now, the Casselton ethanol plant has joined the opposition, saying it can’t afford to have another ag processing plant right next door.

“If it were 30, 40, 50 miles, I would have no problem with it,” Ryan Thorpe, chief operating officer for Tharaldson Ethanol said in an interview with Agweek, adding that he would even encourage construction if it were farther away.

But he says if the plant proposed by North Dakota Soybean Processors is built so close, it will increase the price he pays for the corn that his plant turns into ethanol, hurting his business.

Thorpe sent a letter to Casselton Mayor Lee Anderson formally stating Tharaldson Ethanol’s stance. He sent the letter just hours before the Casselton Planning and Zoning Committee met Monday, April 25, to take up the issue.

The committee voted 5-4 to change the zoning of the parcel just west of Casselton from agricultural use to industrial.

The issue of a conditional use permit for the soybean crushing plant will go before the Casselton City Council at its meeting on Monday, May 2.

North Dakota Soybean Processors has said its project would cost about $400 million and has said the site between Tharaldson Ethanol and the town of Casselton is the only workable site it was able to find in a statewide search for possible locations.

The site has access to both BNSF and Red River Valley and Western rail lines, which it has called “critical” to the plant’s success. READ MORE

Excerpt from InForUm: But Joan Carvell was one council member who visited a soybean crush plant in Brewster, Minnesota. "I did not see the items people are talking about," Carvell said before the council approved a conditional use permit for the plant on Monday, May 2.

The plant at Brewster is owned by Minnesota Soybean Processors, which is partnering with Louisiana-based CGB to form North Dakota Soybean Processors.

Because Tharaldson owns 20% of the land adjacent to the soybean plant site, that objection triggered the need for 75% of Casselton’s City Council to approve the project. With a six-person council, that meant there could be only one no vote on the conditional use permit.

The soybean processing plant will remain outside the city limits of Casselton, about 20 miles west of Fargo.

But as part of an agreement given preliminary approval by the council, North Dakota Soybean Processors will give the city $100,000 annually for 15 years in exchange for not being annexed. READ MORE