LEWISTON, Minn. – The Lewiston City Council voted 4-0 to listen further to a European company’s plans to build a biogas digester, probably just out of town at the city’s waste treatment site. The vote was neither an approval nor disapproval, said Mayor Beth Carlson. The plant would collect dairy farm manure in a 25-mile area and convert it to natural gas. Agents of Nature Energy said the multi-million dollar project would create jobs and alleviate issues with current agricultural manure disposal practices around Lewiston. The company, recently acquired by Shell Oil, has encountered local resistance to similar proposals in St. Croix County in Wisconsin and in Wilson Township near Winona. Among concerns: Spills and aquifer contamination. Since those setbacks, Nature Energy has moved its focus to Lewiston in central Winona County, where the factory-scale Daley dairy farm is located.
