Mitchell soybean plant construction moving along, on schedule to open in 2025
Feb. 27—MITCHELL — The whipping wind, freezing temperatures and flying snow outside the Nordby Trades Center on the campus of Mitchell Technical College Tuesday afternoon belied the update Kyle Peters gave on the process of the soybean crush plant under construction near Mitchell.
The winter has been kind and construction is progressing well, Peters said.
"It's coming along very well," Peters told the Mitchell Republic following a presentation at which about 100 people were in the audience. "We've had a good winter, and that has helped speed up the process."
Peters is part of A1 Development Solutions, a company that provides consultation services to High Plains Processing, which is building a $500 million soybean crush facility near Mitchell. Peters was the keynote speaker Tuesday at Harvesting Excellence, a program put on by the Agri-Business Committee of the Mitchell Chamber of Commerce at Mitchell Tech.
The soybean facility aims to impact the local economy upon completion, which is currently scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2025. The plant will have the capacity to process 35 million bushels of soybeans annually, and is expected to give farmers another market for their products, including both soybeans and sunflowers, as well as provide about 85 jobs with an annual payroll of about $5.5 million.
It's been a concerted effort among multiple parties and organizations, including leadership at South Dakota Soybean Processors, said Peters.
"The team at South Dakota Soybean Processors have done a phenomenal job managing not only the whole project but also construction timelines. It's a testament to them and it's all hands on deck. It's everything from making sure construction is on time to getting easements for certain utilities and working with our partners, but it's been a good project so far," Peters said.
Peters spoke primarily on the Mitchell plant at the event before taking questions from the audience, some of whom inquired about traffic and water usage issues.
The plant will see increased traffic due to the volume of semi trucks and railroad cars needed to transport materials. That will put a strain on South Dakota Highway 37, which is something that has received considerable focus from developers.
Part of the solution to ease congestion will be to add
long turning lanes that accommodate trucks during the busiest of seasons without heavily impacting the flow of traffic.
The turning lanes were added at the recommendation of the South Dakota Department of Transportation, which is also conducting a corridor study on Highway 37 that could also help address traffic flow, though that study is being conducted independently by the SDDOT and is not directly related to the soybean plant project.
"We have to put long turning lanes in, which were approved by the DOT, and will hold six semis, that's how long they are. We're putting in millions of dollars in upgrades," Peters said. "We're putting in turning lanes on the northbound and southbound lanes on Highway 37 and on 257th Street."
The plant will also feature a truck staging area, which Peters said appears small on an artist's rendering of the completed plant, but can handle 70 semis as they wait to offload their crop. In that staging area they can remain on the plant campus and off the roads while they wait to unload their cargo.
It will be a relatively unique feature of the plant campus.
"You can park your semi in this staging area and keep it off the highway. Not many (plants) have this much area, and it keeps trucks off the highway," Peters said.
In addition to truck traffic, train freight congestion was also a question brought up from a member of the audience. That issue should be handled by the installation of a loop track, which is a railway line that branches from the trunk line and then rejoins it later on.
"It's a three-rail loop track. I don't know how many feet it comes out to be, but it's a lot. It's a lot of track," Peters said. "With the rail line — they don't want to be there any longer than they have to because time is money. So they want to get in and out and South Dakota Soybean Processors decided that was going to be the most efficient way to keep it safe and keep it timely and keep things moving."
Another audience member asked Peters about the impact of the plant's expected high water usage and if it was expected to adversely impact regular consumers.
Peters said government oversight helps ensure that water providers meet necessary volume requirements before agreeing to supply an operation as large as the future plant. That should make sure that consumer use is not affected, either in pressure or water availability.
"They have their own checks and balances, so they can't be selling water to us if they don't have it. They need to have it today or have a plan to have it," Peters said.
The keynote address was just one part of the overall event, which also included breakout sessions on a number of topics and a panel titled "Coming Home to the Farm."
Alex Heidinger, director for the Mitchell Chamber of Commerce, said the event was the latest in a series that brings producers, ag producers and experts together. Despite the blustery weather, she said registration for the event was strong.
"We typically either do seminars with a commodities focus or beef seminars. This year since there are various issues we're just calling it an agricultural seminar. It depends on the year as to where we focus our topic, but it's always ag-related," Heidinger said. "I'm very pleased. I think we had a better turnout this year than last year."
For Peters, getting a chance to present on the benefits of value-added agriculture is always something to which he looks forward. It benefits not only the producer, but the entire economy of the Mitchell area and Davison County at large.
When ag is strong, so is its surrounding community, he said.
"Value-added ag is so important in South Dakota. Every job in Mitchell, arguably, comes back to agriculture. And when ag is profitable, people thrive," Peters said.
