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First District cooperative asks committee for gap funding to complete Litchfield wastewater and digester project
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Summary
First District Cooperative leaders said a wastewater pretreatment and digester project necessary to meet MPCA requirements and preserve processing capacity is on track but short roughly $10 million; the committee laid the bill over for possible inclusion.
Senate File 12 99, presented by Senator Lang and First District Cooperative representatives, asked the committee for legislative assistance to close a funding gap on a wastewater pretreatment and digester project serving the First District cheese plant in Litchfield.
Bob Hoffman, president of First District Cooperative, said the plant processes about 8,000,000 pounds of milk a day into roughly 800,000 pounds of cheese and supports about 600 dairy farms across 45 counties. He told the committee the plant discharges process wastewater to the city of Litchfield and that new Minnesota Pollution Control Agency requirements tightened limits on solids and effluent; the cooperative negotiated a compliance schedule but must complete a roughly $50 million project to install a digester and related pretreatment equipment. Hoffman said financing, grants and bonds had been used but the cooperative remained about $10 million short to complete the project.
Hoffman said the timeline is driven by MPCA compliance obligations and that reducing plant throughput would threaten hundreds of dairy farms and the cooperative’s business operations. Senator Lang thanked partners who had worked on bonding and funding options and urged committee members to consider the request.
The committee laid Senate File 12 99 over for possible inclusion; no appropriation vote was taken at the hearing.
