2017 August 30th Special Meeting Minutes


On Wednesday, August 30th, 2017 the Round Lake City Council met in a special session to discuss the gas model that was created by Anthony Everett. Councilmembers in attendance were, Court Baumgard, Paul Cunningham, Walon Habben, Gary Larson and Mayor Doug Knuth. Others in attendance were Derek Nelson and Clerk Elaine Walker. Bill Lindley from Clayton Energy and Anthony Everett from USDI, joined the meeting by teleconference.

Meeting was called to order at 6:15pm.

Motion by Baumgard, second by Cunningham to approve the agenda. All ayes: Carried.

Derek went over the gas model with the Council and briefly discussed each of the eight models. Each one had a unique situation to determine the capacity available in the gas line for the City of Round Lake.

At 6:30pm Derek created a meeting online and Bill Lindley and Anthony Everett joined the meeting by teleconference.

Anthony Everett went through each scenario explaining the limitations of the current gas main that supplies the City of Round Lake with their natural gas. Northern Natural Gas limits the amount of gas the City has access to and that amount will not change unless Northern decides to do a major project to increase this access. This may happen, but it is unlikely to happen in the near future, and when it does it will likely cause a price increase. Until these changes are made, the best option for the City of Round Lake is to work with the elevator to adjust the way they run their grain dryers.

Derek will work with Crystal Valley Co-Op to create a system that will benefit both the City and the CVC and make the use of natural gas more efficient in their drying operations. The Council would like Derek to be their voice, as he is in daily contact with the gas system and understands the needs of the City.

The gas system is designed to handle residential use expansion, but the larger operations are a challenge for our current system. Adjusting how the larger operators do things will enable our system to provide gas to everyone. If we add large users, Anthony encouraged the Council to notify him and he can adjust the models to see what the best plan is at that time.

Motion by Habben, second by Larson to close the special meeting. All ayes: Carried. Meeting was adjourned at 7:45pm.