A dryer facility at Syngenta’s seed processing plant south of Coon Rapids is in the process of being demolished because it is a safety concern, said Syngenta’s Plant Manager, Dave Wiemers.
The dryer is one of four such facilities at the plant, and was built a few years after the plant was constructed in the mid-1970s. Wiemers said concrete chipping off from the inside roof led the company to do an engineering assessment, at which time they determined it was best to tear down the building. Engineers suspect that when the concrete was originally poured, contractors may have mixed it with a chemical to keep it from freezing, and that has weakened the adhesion to the rerod.
Agri-Globe, the same company that was contracted to do renovations at the town dryer a year ago, is in charge of the demolition.
The other part of this project, said Wiemers, is construction of new awnings over the conveyors to the remaining three dryer buildings, which will remain in service.
At this point, Wiemers said the company is still looking at options to replace the dryer building. The short term company plan favors construction of a sizing tower and warehouse facility. “We’re looking at a time frame between 2010 and 2012. It will be a two or three year construction window, perhaps building pieces of it a little at a time,” he described. Syngenta officials will sit down with engineers in October to determine exactly what will be constructed in subsequent years, Wiemers added.
“The plan is we’ll run out south as much as we can with the harvest, and use the town plant for back up,” said Wiemers. He said the incoming harvest has been impacted somewhat by late season planting but is still expected to be average. “The crop really looks good up at Whiting, and Elk Point, South Dakota, but we have some ponding problems in Webster and Story County. Some ponding is not unusual but it’s magnified this year with all the rain we’ve had.”
Syngenta is also in the process of installing a new dust system in the conditioning tower in the town plant. “It’s kind of an active place,” Wiemers added.

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