By Mari Radtke
O’Brien County Supervisors ended October with a public hearing for a construction permit to build an anaerobic digester at the existing Roorda Dairy on Highway 10 and L36. Construction includes the digester building, the sand separator with machinery to separate the sand bedding from waste. The digester is housed in a building to control moisture and temperature consistency. The push is to get the waiver and permit as soon as possible in order to get as much outside work done while the weather holds out. Several subcontractors are working on the project. Before approving the permit a discussion about neighboring residences and the DNR matrix score was held. Residences within 5000 feet were vacant and the DNR score was good.
DJ Weber of TCA explained that TCA (The Community Agency) just missed getting funds from Empower Rural Iowa Broadband Grant Program in the most recent go-round. He announced that another round of applications is being accepted and believes that showing financial support from the county would help score additional points. Specifically, Weber mentioned funds from the County’s share of American Recovery Act Funds (ARPA) or COVID relief federal funding.
TCA is looking to build broadband infrastructure within their exchange area with very low population and a great deal of distance between the 105 locations to use broadband. The grant program is designed to bring broadband to underserved Iowa area. Weber estimates the cost to build into their underserved exchanged area will cost up to $10 million. TCA is in a partnership with Evertek for the build-out.
The county’s current ARPA funds plans are to accept in-house (county only) projects only until March 2022. The county expects to open the funding source up to applications from outside non-profits fitting specific criteria at that time. To date, $206,000 out of the available $1.3 million first half of ARPA funds has been committed. Searching for other options it was noted that the county did not budget anything in the current year for broadband, grant matches or other line item and could not see a way to provide funds at this time.
The NOVA 7 funding can cover up to 60% of a project and is due November 22.
Weber, also a board member for Kids Kampus, the daycare center in Primghar, requested the supervisors to consider funding for expansion of the daycare facility. He explained there are at about any time 7-10 infants on a waiting list due to space limitations. He also said there are anywhere from 1 to 5 “big” kids on the waiting list as well.