Business Flowing in with Water System

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THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2013 , GET NEWS UPDATES AT SCTIMES.COM
Bachmann rules out re-election
News comes amid ethics inquiries, close race in 6th District
MORE INSIDE
By Mark Sommerhauser
» Read about the politicians
who have acknowledged
they’re considering a run for
the 6th District spot on
PAGE 4A.
» Read about Bachmann’s
career in office starting with
her 2000 election to the
Minnesota Senate on
PAGE 4A.
» Bachmann’s career
includes several memorable
statements. See a sample on
PAGE 4A.
msommerhauser@stcloudtimes.com
Rep. Michele Bachmann may continue to enthrall or agitate political
observers, but it won’t be
from her seat in the U.S.
House.
Bachmann, R-Stillwater, announced Wednesday that she won’t seek a
fifth term representing
Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. The news
came in a video posted on-
DAILY
POLL
What will Rep. Michele Bachmann do when she leaves
Congress?
Vote at www.sctimes.com.
Results will be on tomorrow’s
Opinion page.
line just after 2:30 a.m.
Bachmann was emphatic about what she
says did not influence her
decision: ethics inquiries
into her 2012 presidential
campaign, or the possibility that she would lose her
next re-election battle.
She was less clear on
what was responsible for
her departure, aside from
saying eight years is long
enough for a member of
Congress to serve. Bachmann’s staff declined to
comment on the decision.
“I have never considered public office to be an
See RUN, Page 4A
GOLD’N PLUMP IN COLD SPRING
BUSINESS FLOWING IN
WITH WATER SYSTEM
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks May 16 on Capitol Hill
in Washington, D.C. Early Wednesday, she announced she
will not seek re-election in 2014. AP
Former Verso
mill contents
to be auctioned
On site, online bidding starts
Tuesday, will end Wednesday
By Kevin Allenspach
kallenspach@stcloudtimes.com
SARTELL — If you’ve
ever wanted to own some
of the equipment from
the paper mill that has
been synonymous with
Sartell during the last
century, now’s your
chance.
Thousands of tools,
machines, supplies, vehicles and equipment
were left behind by Verso Paper Corp. when it
sold the plant to AIM Development USA in the
wake of last year’s explosion and fire.
BY KIMM ANDERSON, KANDERSON@STCLOUDTIMES.COM
kallenspach@stcloudtimes.com
COLD SPRING — A
steady stream of trucks
pulls in and out of the GNP
Company facility just
about every day of the
week, hauling Gold’n
Plump and other chicken
products
to
markets
across the country.
Out of sight behind several buildings, a tiny creek
flows out of a hillside and
into the Sauk River. The
water, clean enough to
RAPID READ
Weather
drink, comes from the
company’s new treatment
facility just east of the recently expanded processing plant.
GNP spent $10 million
to install membrane bioreactor technology a year
and a half ago, then
dropped another $10 million last year to make the
processing plant bigger to
add new methods for cutting, deboning and ground
chicken production.
See WATER, Page 5A
Relocation costs to be determined
By David Unze
Olmscheid holds one of thousands of
membranes in a membrane bioreactor. The long,
spaghetti-like strands filter clear water through
agitation and suction from solids in the
wastewater treatment plant.
MORE
ONLINE
Watch a video about how the
$10 million water treatment system
works at www.sctimes.com.
dunze@stcloudtimes.com
ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Supreme Court
ruled Wednesday that
landowners who had
their property taken as
part of the CapX2020
high-voltage transmission line construction
are entitled to relocation
costs and minimum compensation.
The decision by the
state’s highest court
overturns a Court of Appeals decision and affirms the ruling by
Stearns County District
Court Judge Frank Kundrat that had been overturned by the Court of
Appeals.
The Supreme Court
ruling
hinged
on
See RULING, Page 4A
DOW ▼ 106.59 to 15,302.80 NASDAQ ▼ 21.37 to 3,467.52 S&P 500 ▼ 11.70 to 1,648.36 OIL ▼ $1.69 to $93.31 GOLD ▲ $6 to $1,382.50
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T-storms
See AUCTION, Page 4A
High court rules in
favor of CapX2020
land compensation
Ron Olmscheid, water resources supervisor at Gold’n Plump
in Cold Spring, last week explains the improvements made
to the company’s wastewater treatment facility. TIMES PHOTOS
By Kevin Allenspach
AIM, which bought
the mill and its contents
four months ago, next
week is auctioning just
about anything that can
be carried, hauled or
driven away. So maybe
you’d like one of the leftover welders, a roll
grinder, a lathe or a hydraulic shear and press
brake. Boring mills,
overhead bridge cranes,
excavators and fork
trucks also are on the
block.
If you don’t want the
80,000-pound,
40-foot
PARKING BAN
Life
Project includes closing a
portion of Fifth Avenue South
to parking earlier. PAGE 1B.
NO GIMMICKS
State
A Texas woman loses more
than 170 pounds using the
old standbys: Exercise and
eating right. PAGE 6A.
A CHALLENGER
152ND YEAR, NO. 352
© 2013 ST. CLOUD TIMES
St. Cloud, Minnesota
Inside
Mike McFadden will vie for
Al Franken’s Senate seat.
PAGE 2B.
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» Grace A. Klisch, 93,
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» Rose Schmidt, 85, Freeport
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» Jerome J. Stumpf, 85, Pierz
Life....................... 6A
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LOCAL/NATION / Thursday, May 30, 2013 / 5A
St. Cloud Times / www.sctimes.com
Letters to mayor
of New York test
positive for ricin
Poison sent to anti-gun group
By Colleen Long
Associated Press
Mike Helgeson, CEO of Gold'n Plump, talks about the company May 22 in front of the Cold Spring plant. TIMES PHOTOS BY
KIMM ANDERSON, KANDERSON@STCLOUDTIMES.COM
Water
From Page 1A
The decision may have
been a gamble for thirdgeneration CEO Mike
Helgeson, who went
ahead even though he said
2011 was the worst year in
financial history for the
poultry industry. But
GNP achieved a record
year in sales revenue and
growth during 2012 and
has forecast annual sales
of more than $400 million
for the first time in 2013.
That would be almost double what the company did
less than a decade ago.
“In the last five years,
about a dozen of the 35-40
national chicken producers have either been
sold or filed for bankruptcy,” said Helgeson, whose
operation dates to 1926.
“We’re by no means the
biggest, and our labor and
environmental costs are
more than for producers
in other parts of the country. So we focus on innovation, getting rid of any
waste and continuous improvement. If we can’t
compete on size and cost,
we have to be a step ahead
of everyone with our
ideas.”
Those ideas, such as
new packing technology
and fixed-weight packages, have sold to partners such as Chipotle,
Famous Dave’s and Target. GNP distributes to
half of the country for
Chipotle and nationally
for the other two. The arrangement with Target
has been in effect for 18
months, and this month
GNP has entered into a
deal with Wal-Mart to supply stores in Iowa and Illinois and throughout the
southwestern states.
That growth equals
more chickens. And it
takes 6.3 gallons of water
to move one through the
cleaning process to packaging. GNP’s previous water treatment capability
wasn’t designed to handle
the volume the company
has achieved — currently
210 chickens per minute
Clay Watson, environmental services manager at Gold’n
Plump in Cold Spring, shows how raw wastewater starts
and the final, treated water is returned to either the river
or reused for cleaning in the building.
or about a million per
week.
That’s where Clay Watson and Ron Olmscheid
come in. Watson, who has
been with the company 30
years, is the environmental services manager supervising all GNP facilities, including a recently
expanded plant of about
the same size in Arcadia,
Wis. Olmscheid, who has
27 years on the job, is the
water resources supervisor. Both work out of Cold
Spring, where the new
treatment facility is perhaps being heralded more
than the chicken.
Watson and his team
have received three major awards in the past
year for the performance
of the facility, which is the
largest membrane bioreactor system in Minnesota and the only one being used in the poultry industry. GNP received the
2013 Clean Water Award
from the U.S. Poultry &
Egg Association, the 2013
Operations Award for
Minnesota from the Central States Water Environment Association, and a
2012 certificate of commendation from the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency.
It treats about 1.6 million gallons of wastewater
per day. The filters are a
million hollow membrane
fibers that vacuum the
wastewater through holes
0.04 microns in diameter.
Phosphorus and ammonia
also are removed at vari-
ous stages. That helps reduce potential odor to
nearby businesses.
Each day, a half-million
gallons of that reclaimed
water is used in areas
around the plant that don’t
come in direct contact
with chicken. This is for
use cleaning floors, in air
compressors and the
sprinkler system, among
others.
“That’s water we can
use that’s not potable,”
Watson said.
He
estimates
the
chicken production plant
uses 23 million gallons of
potable water every
month. Two-thirds of that
comes from a GNP well
and the other one-third is
city water. However,
they’re using 8 million
gallons of reconditioned
water in various plant
processes, so that saves
impact on the bottom line,
not to mention the environment. What’s more,
the new water treatment
facility costs less per
month in electricity than
the previous system even
though this one treats
much more water.
“We’re pretty proud of
it,” Watson said. “It’s one
of the best systems in the
U.S. and we don’t flow any
storm water to the river.
Everything is getting
treated.”
And, according to sample data, the wastewater
discharge is many times
cleaner than required by
regulations. The GNP facility has received eight
certificates of commendation from the MPCA
since 1992.
Olmscheid estimates
in a few years the system
could produce potable water, perhaps someday
meaning half the water
used in the plant could
merely be recycled over
and over again.
“That would help us
and it would help Cold
Spring because we’d be
relying less on city water,” Olmscheid said.
The water treatment
facility also can be
equipped to handle more
than 2 million of the fibers, meaning it would
have the capacity for the
accompanying chicken
processing facility to double in size.
“There won’t be any
bottleneck again,” Olmscheid said.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the acquisition of the Cold Spring
factory from Armour, and
Helgeson said there is
room to expand toward
Highway 23 and to the
west, if necessary. For
now, last year’s expansion
to the processing plant
will suffice. It has increased capacity by at
least 15 percent in many
areas.
“We put in a new chiller
and changed our first
processing line,” said Helgeson, who has 1,600 employees — and one in four
has worked at GNP for at
least 16 years. “We removed the old equipment
and put in new electrical
and water lines. It was a
capital intensive project.
Fortunately, we’re experiencing a growth opportunity with our existing customers. They see value in
what we offer and there
will be new opportunities
ahead, too.”
Follow Kevin Allenspach on
Twitter @kevinallenspach.
NEW YORK — Two
threatening letters sent to
Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York and his
gun-control group in
Washington
contained
traces of the deadly poison ricin, police said
Wednesday.
The anonymous letters
were opened in New York
on Friday at the city’s mail
facility in Manhattan and
in Washington on Sunday
at an office used by Mayors Against Illegal Guns,
the nonprofit started by
Bloomberg. Chief New
York Police spokesman
Paul Browne said preliminary testing indicted the
presence of ricin in both
letters but that more testing would be done.
The people who initially came into contact with
the letters showed no
symptoms of exposure to
the poison, but three officers who later examined
the New York letter experienced
some
minor
symptoms that have since
abated, police said.
Both the letters contained threats to Bloomberg and an oily pinkishorange
substance,
Browne said. He would
not comment on what specific threats were made or
where the letters were
postmarked.
Word of the letters
comes as a 37-year-old
man is charged in Washington state with sending
the toxin in letters to a
federal judge, and about a
month after letters containing the substance
were addressed to President Barack Obama, a
U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge. A Mississippi
man was arrested in that
case.
Congress plans more
hearings into IRS
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — At
least two congressional
panels plan more hearings next week on the Internal Revenue Service’s
targeting of conservative
groups seeking tax-exempt status.
When Congress returns from a weeklong recess on Monday, Danny
Werfel is scheduled to appear before a House Appropriations subcommittee in his first congressional testimony since becoming
acting
IRS
commissioner last week.
Also appearing will be J.
Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general whose report
detailed the IRS tactics.
Florida
Republican
Rep. Ander Crenshaw,
chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that
oversees financial services and general government, said he wants to
make sure Americans are
treated fairly, whatever
their political beliefs.
On Tuesday, the House
Ways and Means Committee plans a hearing with
groups targeted by the
IRS. The panel did not
identify which organizations would testify.
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