One year after a private proposal, KEDA Board agrees to pursue first steps of county’s plan
One year ago, a proposal was made by a private developer to the Koochiching Economic Development Authority Board, which launched monthly discussions about blasting rock and crushing gravel in a local foreign trade zone.
Wednesday, KEDA Board members made the first, preliminary step in allowing Koochiching County to remove the rock as part of an overall FTZ site preparation plan.
Will Hoyt, assistant county engineer, presented the board with a map of the proposed blasting areas. Hoyt has been working with KEDA Director Paul Nevanen and Dave Serrano, Arro of the North, to prepare the site for future development. In addition, the rock will be crushed into road aggregate, which county officials have noted is in short supply in this area.
The board voted to allow the county to proceed with permitting, with decisions on partnerships with local area governments to be forthcoming.
Wade Pavleck, one of the KEDA Board’s county representatives, has earlier discussed the financial incentives for the county pursuing the blasting and crushing. He has said the project may be worth in excess of $1 million to county taxpayers.
A KEDA subcommittee has been concentrating on marketing efforts, including creation of conceptual site plans that can be used to attract developers. The site plans would include potential building and road designs. To that end, the KEDA has enlisted the help of former Target Corp. site selector Jim Theusch to advise on the best courses of action, as well as create a timeline and financial projection for the various scenarios.
“It seems like whatever is developed on this site, the first phase that we anticipated is removing the rock down to about the railroad grade level,” Hoyt said. The highway department plan would be to remove about 80,000 cubic yards of rock by blasting and crushing the rock to make class five road materials.
“At this time, the highway department is interested in proceeding with this,” Hoyt said. “If there are partners, such as KEDA itself that wants to save some of that material for interior road, we welcome that partnership. If the city (International Falls) wants to partner on it, we welcome that.”
Hoyt explained the next step would be to get a conditional-use permit from the county to blast and crush the rock this summer. This action will likely be discussed with Ranier, several officials noted. Ranier annexed the foreign trade zone land in October. The FTZ is managed by the KEDA and jointly owned by the city of International Falls and Koochiching County.
One of the biggest factors in completing any project in the FTZ is wetland mitigation. Hoyt said the plan he presented Wednesday would not disturb “pocket wetlands” located on top of the rock in the site. Instead, blasting would be done around the wetland sites.
Serrano, who has been working with the FTZ project for several years, described a three-step mitigation process that he hopes to proceed with in the future.
The first step would be to mitigate less than one-half acre of wetlands. Serrano explained that he would meet with an Army Corps of Engineers representative next week to get permitting for that first stage of mitigation. Hoyt said he hopes Serrano gets permission so that “we can do a more complete site.”
Serrano said the second step would involve the conceptual site plans. The third step would impact a larger portion of wetlands for expanded projects. Railroad use and other variables will be considered, he explained.
