City Council Approves Grant For Rail Study
By Terry Schwartzenberger
The Napoleon City Council met in a special session on Tues., Feb. 17 where they granted approval of up to $35,000 for a possible railroad spur. The grant would come from the economic development fund of city sales tax dollars.
Council members, Rod Kleppe, Rich Bjerklie, John Wald, Clark Haas, Mike Heying and Bob Humann offered unanimous approval for the project. Humann, council president, presided over the meeting as Mayor Todd Moos was not present.
There were six concerned citizens at the meeting. Logan County Economic Development Coordinator Eric Hoberg and Cole Breidenbach, representing Central Dakota Frontier (DFC) addressed the council with the proposed project. The roughly $20 million planned project would have DFC, which has 13 locations across the state, construct a 20,000-ton dry fertilizer facility which could be located near their current agronomy building in southeast Napoleon. The new facility would be an entirely enclosed facility with the capability of handling unit trains, up to 112 rail cars. It is estimated once complete DFC would add four full-time employees and there would be an influx of up to an additional 700 semi-trucks per year which would haul fertilizer from the facility. This is based on an estimated service area of about a 55 mile radius of Napoleon. Hoberg said, “Napoleon is located in a great spot for this and I would like to get the ball rolling.”
The DFC board of directors has committed to fund the building construction, however a spur rail line coming off the current DMVW rail system, which runs nearby, needs to be engineered and constructed to service the area.
According to Hoberg, the request of funds would be used to complete the preliminary work for an EDA grant funding application as well as providing a complete application to the EDA by April 1 in hopes of acquiring up to a $2.5 million dollar EDA grant to assist with construction of the spur.
The Napoleon City Sales tax committee heard the. . .