Turkey plant proposes byproducts plant

HURON  (AP) — The Dakota Provisions turkey processing plant at Huron wants to build a second plant that would make pet food out of the byproducts from the processing plant.
 Jeff Sveen, chairman of the Dakota Provisions board, said waste products that include feathers and blood are now trucked to a plant in Worthington, Minn.
 He said the plant would employ 15 people initially and as many as 40 eventually.
 The turkey plant is owned by a consortium of Hutterite colonies and has 675 employees.
 Greater Huron Development Corporation and Dakota Gobblers LLC have applied for a variance to build the plant where it is not a permitted use in a general industrial district. GHDC is involved because it would acquire the 8 acres of city-owned land that would be part of the transaction.
 The 10,000-square-foot plant would be built about three-fourths of a mile from the processing plant and surrounded on three sides by city lagoons.
 Property owners living nearby said at a hearing on the variance request that worry about odors and a potential negative impact that further discharges into the lagoons could have on air quality.
 Much of the odor that people associate with byproducts plants is from dead animals, Sveen said. The proposed plant would process only fresh products, he said.
 A hearing examiner ruled in favor of the variance request, sending it to the city commission.