Ashley Elevator Expansion - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

A little elevator under goes a major expansion.

The elevator in Ashley has grown more than 20 times in size.

Northern Plains Cooperative now sits about eight miles west of town at the junction of Highway 11 and 3.

The elevator is being built in 2 phases.

Grain Manager Rodney Meidinger says at the end of this month phase 1 should be complete.

He says once stage two is finished the elevator will be able to store about 700-thousand bushels of grain.   

(Rodney Meidinger / Grain Manager at Northern Plains in Ashley) "With corn moving into the area we just need more storage. We didn't have a dryer so corn was a tough crop for us to contract in the spring, so a lot of the corn went to our neighboring elevators along the rail. This will keep a lot of grain at home." 

Meidinger says because of the harvest rush, they did dump 350-thousand bushels of corn on the ground this October.

He says the new elevator is attracting new customers. 

(Rodney Meidinger / Grain Manager at Northern Plains in Ashley) "When we were open at harvest we had quite a few guys bring corn in that we hadn't done business with for years." 

Meidinger says all construction should be complete by 2015.