Montana's largest animal slaughter plant proposed for Great Falls area

David Murray
Great Falls Tribune
A site contour map shows the plans for a proposed animal processing plant east of Great Falls.

A prominent Albertan livestock production and animal nutrition corporation filed an application within Cascade County to develop Montana's largest slaughterhouse and meat processing plant on the outskirts of Great Falls.

If approved and constructed as described within a Special Use Permit (SUP) application filed with the Cascade County Planning Division, the proposed “Madison Food Park” complex could employ up to 3,000 people, exporting thousands of tons of meat to consumer markets throughout North America.

“The scope and scale of the proposed Madison Food Park (MFP) property and project will include, when complete, a state-of-the-art, robotically controlled, environmentally friendly, multi-species food processing plant for cattle, pigs and chickens and the related further processing facilities for beef, pork and poultry,” a Friesen Foods response to the special use application states.

“In addition to the meat packing elements, the project will also incorporate facilities for the processing of both fresh milk supplied by local and regional dairy producers into a variety of cheese products, as well as a distillery, which will source the grain necessary for the production of Montana branded spirits from cereal crops grown by area farmers within the Golden Triangle.”

Plans for the Madison Food Park remain preliminary; however, the Cascade County Planning Division has confirmed that 3,018-acres of undeveloped farmland has been sold to Friesen Foods. The property is located 8.3 miles east of Great Falls city limits, just past the BNSF railroad viaduct and south of U.S. Highway 89/200.

A 3,000 acre slaughter facility is proposed just east of Great Falls along Highway 87.

State property records show the property was formerly held in trust for the estate of John Zoller, with the primary trustee listed as Dana Huestis. Pass by the land today and all you will see is a wheat field. But within the next several years a mass agri-tech complex could rise on these fields, potentially processing up to 165 truckloads of cattle, hogs, chickens and bulk milk each week.

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“Pie-in-the-sky” proposals for mass employment generating business enterprises are not uncommon, with varying degrees of reliability, but the prospects for the development of a Madison Food Park seem fairly reliable.

The Friesen family of businesses have been operating in Alberta for the past two decades. From a livestock production enterprise, the corporation has expanded to include meat processing and animal nutrition divisions.

The financial backing and development of the Friesen franchise is closely related to the Hutterite Colonies of southern Alberta. A satellite office of Friesen Livestock Ltd. was opened on Vaughn Road outside Great Falls in 2000. That operation will soon move into a new facility under the Friesen Livestock Nutrition brand name, just south of the former Buttrey warehouse building on 6th Street SW.

The soon to be completed offices for Friesen Nutrition are located off 6th Street  SW immediately adjacent to the NAPA auto store retail store and warehouse.

Brian Clifton, Public Works Director for Cascade County noted that two major issues confront Friesen Foods’ application process – transportation and water usage.

The Madison Food Park permit application estimates that a fully operational production facility would use up to 3.55 million gallons of water a day – all drawn from three to four deep wells drilled into the Madison aquifer - the same subterranean water source that feeds Giant Springs at the state park on the eastern edge of Great Falls.

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The containment and disposal of approximately 103,000 pounds of animal waste produced each day will also be a consideration. Friesen Foods anticipates that “99.6 percent of the solid and liquid waste produced as a direct by-product of livestock processing will be ... recycled by means of anaerobic digestion technology incorporated into the energy generation equipment design of the facilities, which will convert the waste stream into usable energy (methane gas) to power electric turbines.”

“The water, wastewater and stormwater components of this proposal are complex,” Clifton said, “as well as their request for transportation access.”

A fully functioning slaughter and production facility would likely generate 165 truck arrivals and departures each week. To accommodate the additional traffic would almost certainly require modification of U.S. Highway 89/200 – likely involving the development of new turn lanes.

To be clear, the prospect of a major industrial-level slaughter and processing facility on the outskirts of Great Falls is only in the preliminary application phase. While the special use permit application has been submitted, a long list of state and federal agencies must still weigh in on the proposal before the green light is given.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, city and county health officials, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Malmstrom Air Force Base and Cascade County Conservation Districts – among others – must all be given a chance to respond to Friesen Foods’ SUP application before any determination takes place.

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Adjacent property owners and local citizens will also be given the opportunity to comment.

A draft site plan shows the plans for the proposed Madison Food Park east of Great Falls.

“We are required to send out a certified mailing to all adjacent property owners saying that we have received an application to do this,” Clifton said.

A public hearing on the Madison Food Park proposal has already been scheduled. That public hearing will take place on Thursday, Nov. 9 at the Family Living Center building on the Cascade County Fairgrounds.

Clifton emphasized that the Cascade County Planning Division is legally and ethically obligated to remain neutral on all applications for development. The department has already begun collecting public comments regarding the Madison Food Park proposal.

“We don’t go pro or con on any application for development,” Clifton said. “Our job is to stay system neutral, do the research that we can get done, present it in an equitable fashion and let the Zoning Board of Adjustments determine it.”

If no major regulatory or reporting obstacles arise within the application process, preliminary work on the Madison Food Park could conceivably begin in 2018.

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