By Stephanie Froese

Birch Hills says goodbye to shuttered elevator

Nov 28, 2011 | 11:00 AM

It has been a year coming and now the big concrete grain elevator in Birch Hills has been destroyed.

Dust flew on Saturday when the elevator was demolished, finalizing a closure that was announced last December.

It was last year when Cargill, the company that owned the elevator, announced it would stop accepting grain deliveries and would close down the facility.

While the closure or demolition of older wooden grain elevators across the prairies have been a common occurrence in the last 30 years, this facility was described by some members of the community as a beautiful and fairly new structure. The building had been standing since 1985.

“It seems a shame to have such beautiful facilities just destroyed with a wrecking ball, they could still serve a very useful purpose,” said Earl Mickelson, a farmer and the reeve of the RM of Birch Hills.

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“Our nearest contact with a grain elevator would be at Mel fort which is 45 miles away and then a lot of our grain goes to Saskatoon which is near 100 miles away,” he said.

Mickelson said the closing of the elevator is a pretty drastic change to what farmers in the area are used to.

“It will add cost to farmers to get their product to market. It will add cost to rate payers because it will change the way we use our roads, therefore the cost will be higher and there will be a big loss to the tax base in the town of Birch Hills.”

According to Darlene Cochrane, town administrator in Birch Hills, the tax revenue lost from last year’s closure is in the $75,000 range. She said it is a significant figure but the town has not been devastated from the loss. 

Mickelson said he had talked with fellow councillors and community members about how they might be able to stop the closure of the elevator but because it was a privately owned facility their options were limited.

In an announcement last year owners Cargill identified challenges, including a lack of rail service in winter months as a factor in the decision to close the facility.

sfroese@panow.com