BRITTON, S.D. - The new, $32 million Wheaton-Dumont Britton Grain Terminal is up and running.
The site started taking in grain on July 18 and South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard helped dedicate it in an event that drew about 500 people on Aug. 1. The site is one mile south of Britton, S.D., serviced both by Canadian Pacific and BNSF railroads. The facility is planned to handle wheat, corn and soybeans, but has not yet scheduled its first train.
The green field facility is a limited liability company involving Wheaton- Dumont Co-op Elevator group, based in Wheaton, Minn., and United Grain Corp., of Vancouver, Wash. The company received finance participation from Cofina Financial, and CHS Capital LLC. An older elevator owned by Wheaton-Dumont will be converted to wheat storage, says Justin Ostby, terminal manager.
The facility employs six people full-time, year-round. Wheaton-Dumont Co-op has similar-sized terminals in Graceville, Minn., and in Tenney, Minn. The company has other elevators in Campbell, Minn.; Dumont, Minn.; Clinton, Minn.; in La Mars (Richland County), Hankinson and Mantador, N.D.; and Sisseton, S.D.
The new facility has upright storage capacity of nearly 4.6 million bushels, with additional planned temporary storage capacity of another 2.9 million bushels, and a wet holding capacity of 433,000 bushels. The facility has two Brock dryer towers, each with 4,700 bushels-per-hour capacity.
It features covered inbound and outbound scales and incoming capacity of 60,000 bushels per hour, and loading capacity of 80,000 bushels per hour. Rail tracks can hold 120 cars plus four locomotives on a circle track.
The general contractor was Gateway Building Systems of Fergus Falls, Minn. It used 1,500 tons of bin steel, 700 tons of structural steel and 364 tons of rail steel. Construction required 53,400 millwright hours. The project required 14,000 yards of concrete. The storage involves 120,000 square yards of Geo-Textile Fabric. The elevator is located on 300 acres of land, and involved 300,000 yards of excavation and 130,000 yards of structural fill.
