Clay County Commission

Dan Haglund

Clay County Public Health has a good “problem.”
And that problem is: what to do with a $129,540 check that fell into their lap.
The check, which arrived last week, represents 40 percent of the $323,850 pollution violation fine levied against the now-shuttered Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) plant in south Moorhead.
Clay County Public Health executives Kathy McKay and Kent Severson delivered the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Partnership4Health Community Health Board contract presentation to the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday evening in Moorhead.
Recently, the Pollution Control Agency had fined the now-shuttered Busch Agricultural Resources Inc. of Moorhead based on failure to complete certain performance tests and exceeding permitted particulate matter emissions. This happened in one of their inspections in May of 2023.
The plant, which most recognize as the giant Budweiser building just north of Interstate 94 in Moorhead, closed its doors this year after reach an agreement with Rahr Malting Co. in Shakopee, Minn., to take over the malting production.
Also a part of that agreement was the sale of Anheuser-Busch elevators in West Fargo and Sutton, S.D.
Little if no activity has been seen at the plant in recent weeks, though.
According to McKay, Public Health administrator, the emissions measurements were not high enough to warrant a public health warning, but not to a harmful level.
“So in other words, their air quality emissions they deemed would not be a public health issue,” McKay said.
Severson, director of Environmental Health, said even having to deal with and monitor such an issue in concert with Minnesota Pollution Control and the Minnesota Department of Health is quite rare.
McKay said there is some statutory language which states that if a company such as Busch is in violation, a portion of the fine will go to the local public health agencies.
McKay said the PCA and MDH are not aware of any harm to the local population.
“We’re still required by statute to follow up and do some community efforts to determine what the community would want to see with the money we are going to receive,” McKay said.
How much of the huge fine will go to local public health? $129,540, which calculates to 40 percent of the total fine.
And because the pollution issue did only affect the city of Moorhead, Clay County Public Health got that full amount last week.
“So now the task for Public Health is now to convene some meetings in our community,” McKay said. “To determine what the citizens would like us to do with the amount of money we have been allocated.”
McKay says Public Health has 12 months to determine where the monies go.
Busch Ag, which goes by the acronym BARI, had been responsible for growing the hops, malting barley and milling rice. The company was fined $323,850 in May for violating Minnesota rules and federal standards on many occasions.
Included in the violations were: failure to perform 22 performance tests by on time, and were more than two years late when actually completed; failure to calculate particulate matter emissions; failure to perform tests for the same issue; exceeding particulate matter emissions by 437 percent on one stack; and failure to apply for a permit for the installation of a new, permanent generator.
The MPCA takes into consideration the number and egregiousness of the violations in determining the monetary penalty.
The Busch fine is only the second such levied in the state under the pollution statute. The first one, slightly higher penalty, was against Crystal Sugar in East Grand Forks for a different violation.
The former malt plant is located on an eight-acre site at 2101 26th St. S. in Moorhead and was built in 1978. It processed several million bushels of barley each year, which was shipped to brewing facilities in other cities.