A plan to haul liquid beef tallow to Claremont and ship it out on rail cars has met substantial opposition.
About 40 local residents attended a community meeting at the city hall on Thursday, July 11 and made it clear they aren’t keen on the idea. Their primary concern is that the tanker trucks hauling the tallow from DemKota Ranch Beef in Aberdeen to the rail line in Claremont will damage streets in town.
Parts of two city streets leading to the tracks are posted as not allowing trucks. They are Third Street, which enters town from County Road 9 to the north, and Sixth Avenue, which primarily runs along the tracks from southwest to southeast. Third Street is gravel.
Scott Vincent of Strobel Energy Logistics was at the meeting, but was not warmly greeted. He said it’s likely five trucks would run through Claremont each day to unload tallow. That would generally happen between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., he said.
Vincent is the director of logistics and director of environmental, health and safety for Strobel.
The city streets can’t handle that many heavy loads, Claremont residents said. Furthermore, the city recently finished a big water project and doesn’t want that underground infrastructure damaged, they said.
Vincent said Third Street wasn’t posted when he first visited with city officials. It is now.
He said that in previous conversations with city leaders, Sheriff Dave Lunzman and Brown County Highway Department Superintendent Dirk Rogers, a route to the tracks using Third Street and Sixth Avenue was agreed to. The details are outlined in a preliminary map dated June 21.
On that map, trucks would enter Claremont from the north on Third Street and exit to the west on Sixth Avenue. That was what city officials asked for after a previous proposal, Vincent said.
He said Rogers didn’t take issue with the current plan.
Claremont town trustee resigns amid strife
The situation, however, has changed. One Claremont trustee Vincent visited with, Shane Johnson, is no longer on the town board.
Jason Spencer, another Claremont trustee, said Johnson resigned during the Monday, July 8 city meeting.
One woman at the July 11 meeting, which was often contentious, asked Vincent if Johnson was to get a kickback. No chance, Vincent said.
Johnson wasn’t at the meeting.
Vincent said he and Johnson had an agreement in which Johnson said the trucking plan sounded like a good one. Other folks in the community don’t agree and said Johnson wasn’t speaking for the entire town.
Spencer said he met with Vincent and Johnson, but wasn’t with them the entire time they visited. For that reason, Spencer should have known about the plan, Vincent said.
The town trustees didn’t take any action on the trucking proposal, Spencer said, citing concerns about streets.
While the town board doesn’t have to approve a business trucking through town, it can control trucks on streets, according to city code.
Spencer laid out a plan that would allow the trucks from DemKota to get to the tracks in Claremont. It would involve building a road that loops from the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Sixth Street on the south side of town, around a transloader and back to the intersection.
Vincent said he doesn’t think that will work because there isn’t enough room for trucks to get past an elevator and a park to the transloader given the railroad right of way. But, he said, he thinks an alternative solution can be found that can satisfy everybody.
The transloader is the equipment that would use a soft hose to pump the liquid tallow from the tanker trucks into tanker rail cars.
It takes about four trucks to fill one tanker rail car, Vincent said during a phone interview the day after the meeting. He said at least one pull away — when full railcars are hauled away and empty ones are dropped off — a week is needed. But he said he anticipates two or three a week until things slow down during winter.
He said he doesn’t want there to have to be an injection or anything along those lines.
Building a new road would be costly. Vincent said that wouldn’t make him happy, but it’s a possibility. He said he’s looking at workable options.
Tallow would be shipped out on state-owned tracks
The tracks are owned by the state and the line is operated by the Dakota, Missouri Valley and Western Railroad, Spencer said. There’s railroad right of way along the tracks, then state-owned land between there and Sixth Avenue, he said.
Strobel is leasing land from the state along the tracks where the transloader will be. Some work to prepare the area has already been done.
Vincent said he would start with one employee in Claremont, plus local truckers would be hired to haul the tallow to the transloader. He said if things went well, he would like to buy the state-owned land he is now leasing.
That would result in extra property tax for Claremont, Vincent said.
Opponents to the plan, though, said they will work to buck it.
“Then our goal is to acquire that property, too,” said Sherm Cutler, a Claremont area resident who attended the meeting.
“Good. Then we’ll have a bidding war on our hands,” Vincent countered.
The exchange was a reflection of the aggravation apparent during the meeting.
Claremont residents share other concerns
Other concerns Claremont residents raised included safety, the prospect of odor, a lack of revenue for the town and that Strobel didn’t meet with the full town board or community members before starting its work.
Vincent said the liquid tallow does have an odor similar to a McDonald’s fryer. Once it is unloaded, the remaining residue has a less pleasant smell, he said, but the tankers would be sealed when they aren’t being loaded.
In the event of a spill, Strobel would be liable and have to pay for any cleanup. But, he said, liquid tallow doesn’t sink into the ground and he’s never seen a serious spill in his decades of working with the product.
“If there’s some act of God, we’re responsible for that,” Vincent said, adding that the company wouldn’t have to post a bond, but would need insurance.
He said Claremont is responsible for maintaining its own streets, but that doesn’t mean Strobel wouldn’t pitch in.
Tallow is byproduct of rendering used for renewable fuels
The tallow is a byproduct of the rendering process at DemKota Ranch Beef, Vincent said. A different shipper has been moving the tallow for several months, but is limited by capacity and operating hours, he said.
That’s when Strobel was called in. Vincent said BNSF Railway, which runs through Aberdeen, doesn’t have the needed rail capacity, so he had to look for other options.
Vincent said he reached out to Dakota, Missouri Valley and Western Railroad and learned the nearest workable option was at Claremont. There’s a rail spur with the capacity and frequency of service that meets the company’s needs, he said.
Community members, though, told Vincent to keep on looking.
The idea of hiring a constable to protect the roads was even suggested during the meeting.
Strobel is what’s known as a terminal operator. It oversees getting commodities — generally bulk liquids — from one mode of transportation to another.
It doesn’t own the commodity, trucks, tracks or anything else, Vincent said.
He said he first negotiated with a private landowner to access the track. That process took about four weeks, but broke down, he said. That’s when he reached out to Claremont officials roughly six weeks ago.
Right now, Vincent said, the plan is to move only liquid tallow, but he would be open to shipping other products like, for instance, soybean oil given there’s a crushing plant in Aberdeen.
The tallow is needed to make renewable diesel, sustainable aviation and similar fuels, he said. Renewable fuels need to use feedstocks like tallow, soybean oil and canola oil, Vincent said.
That’s why there’s a big demand for beef tallow now when in the past businesses had to pay to get rid of it.
Strobel is an 80-year old family-owned company based in Nebraska that also builds equipment under the Strobel Manufacturing brand, Vincent said.
