News
Bottineau Farmers Elevator to get new office
Tyler Ohmann
11/15/2011
The Bottineau Farmers Elevator (BFE) has begun construction on a new facility that will include a new office building, a probe, a scale and potentially a new fertilizer plant.
The new structure is located west of the Bottineau County Fairgrounds, on some land BFE purchased some time back.
“It will be the main office for the Bottineau Farmers Elevator,” said Wayne Johnson, the General Manager of BFE.
Construction on the facility began about a month ago and is being done by Kevin Allard Construction according to Johnson.
The plan will mean a new route for trucks who will be heading to do their dumping during harvest in the future.
“We will put a scale up there, and will be routing the trucks on the bypass by Glinz’s and the bypass by the airport,” Johnson said. “The trucks will get probed and scaled up there and proceed down by the elevators to dump.”
Several factors went into the move, but the main one was traffic flow.
“The truck traffic on Railroad Avenue during harvest time is just crazy,” Johnson said. “So, it is kind of designed for traffic flow.”
Other factors for the move include the addition of the probe shack, which producers had been asking for according to Johnson, and the condition of the current office, which BFE did not think was worth repairing.
The old BFE office will remain in place for the time being according to Johnson.
“Eventually I imagine it will be torn down,” Johnson said. “Right now it doesn’t have a big scale in it, so it’s kind of worthless as these trucks have gotten so big.”
The change-up is going to be positive on all accounts according to Johnson.
“I think it is going to help the traffic flow a lot,” Johnson said of the move. “I think it is going to simplify the dumping of several commodities.”
“I feel that it is going to make us a lot more efficient in our truck dumping, and a lot simpler for the growers,” Johnson added.
The scales will be constructed next spring, and the offices they hope to have completed by June or July according to Johnson. However, as of now they plan to hold off on implementing the new harvest plan until after next fall’s harvest.
“I just don’t want to have too much congestion right before harvest,” Johnson said. “There will be bugs you have to work out. There will be a learning curve, and after harvest hopefully we can get everybody acclimated into the new facility.”
BFE also has been talking about plans for a new fertilizer plant between the new office and the railroad tracks.
“Nothing is concrete, but we are looking into a newer fertilizer plant,” Johnson said. “The one down on Seventh Street is getting old.”