To View Video

Two expanding ethanol plants in the Aberdeen area want the city to supply over one and a half million gallons of water every day. Monday, the city council addressed how much to charge customers who need large amounts of water.

It will cost Watertown's Glacial Lakes Energy about three dollars for every thousand gallons of water used at it's plant, if it gets that water from the City of Aberdeen.

CEO of Glacial Lakes Energy Tom Branham says, "I think the rate is fair given we are going to be a large user. We're going to be using a little over a million gallons a day."

Glacial Lakes will begin construction on a 100 million gallon ethanol plant just west of Aberdeen in the fall. The company first turned to WEB water.

Branham says, "WEB made an initial proposal that we asked them to reconsider."

Glacial Lakes also asked Aberdeen for a proposal, and Monday, the city council approved a new bulk water usage rate. It would be applied to businesses which use over ten million gallons of treated water a month.

Mayor Mike Levsen, "This is breaking new ground for us and we've spent a lot of time trying to arrive at a rate that's fair based on all of the factors that are involved for the bulk user."

Included in the bulk rate is 50 cents for every thousand gallons of water used, which can be set aside for the future water needs of Aberdeen.

Levsen says, "If we're eating up a million gallons of our daily ability to deliver water we wanted to allocate some of the money we're charging with that to help us find another million to sell to somebody else or go to our residents."

Now that Glacial Lakes knows how much it would have to pay, it must decide between getting the water from the city...or building somewhere else.

Glacial Lakes is waiting for another proposal from WEB. If it decides to get the water from that group, the plant will be built in Edmunds County. If Glacial Lakes decides to get the water from Aberdeen, the plant will be built in Brown County.

A decision will be made in a few weeks.