VALMONT TO REQUEST TAX PHASE-IN FOR NEW PLANT

  

Brenham’s Valmont Plant plans to add a galvanizing plant on 34 acres adjacent to its current location.  At today’s City Council meeting, they will request the creation of a reinvestment zone for a tax phase-in for the property.  Valmont plans to invest 18.5 million dollars in the project and create 80 new jobs.  Those 80 jobs are projected to add 4.3 million dollars in payroll to the area.  Valmont plans to increase the workforce to 120 in 5 years.  The new plant is expected to be completed by October of this year.

If granted, the tax abatement would amount to 1.1 million dollars over the 8 year tax phase-in.  Of that amount, $547 thousand would be from city taxes.  The tax phase-in is being requested from the city and county.  Blinn College and Brenham ISD do not issue tax abatements.

In January of this year  City Engineer Grant Lischka, and City Development Services Manager Erik Smith, traveled to Valley, Nebraska to tour the Valmont galvanizing plant located there.  They noted that the zinc vat used in the galvanizing process is kept at 850 degrees around the clock.  That would make the new Brenham plant the largest consumer of natural gas that the city serves.  They also noted that Valmont plans for the new plant to use “closed loop” processes so that acids and chemicals used will be reprocessed and converted to other products such as fertilizer.  They said there should be no discharge from the acid vats into the wastewater system.  The city staff reported that there were no obnoxious odors outside the plant and only a slight odor next to the acid and zinc vats.  The new plant will have to apply to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for a permit.