Ron Prestage explains the hog plant proposal for Mason City. (file photo)
The company that plans to place a pork processing plant in North Iowa is agreeing to send more than a million dollars to the Mason City School District.
Prestage Foods of Iowa has agreed to pay the Mason City School District $1.4 million over a 10-year period to address potential growth issues.
In addition, the company has agreed to a two-and-a-half mile buffer zone around the cities of Mason City and Clear Lake as well as the lake itself in which it will not construct any hog confinements or purchase animals from a facility in that area.
Those items have been added to a pending development agreement that will be considered by the City Council. Prestage officials hope to open the $240 million plant sometime in 2018. The plant is expected to initially process up to 10,000 pigs a day and eventually employ as many as 2,000 workers.
(Reporting by Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)