Jamestown (CSi) The Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corporation (JSDC) Board of Directors has unanimously approved participating in a tax incentive for the planned CHS nitrogen fertilizer plant at Spiritwood.

The annual incentive payment by the JSDC to CHS totals $4.7 million over 20 years and is about the amount CHS would have been eligible for as a New Jobs Incentive Fund loan from the JSDC. That loan would have been repaid to the JSDC from the North Dakota income tax withheld from employees at CHS.

The JSDC will pay $235,000 each year for 20 years to CHS as a rebate on the $3.235 million payment in lieu of taxes CHS will make annually. The payment in lieu of taxes amounts to about 44 percent of the full property tax payment.

Stutsman County will pay 90 percent of the $235,000 with the city of Jamestown covering 10 percent. Collections to the county economic development fund will increase by about $100,000 with the payment in lieu of taxes collection from CHS and tax collections from associated developments such as a natural gas pipeline and an electrical power substation.

CHS announced last Friday that it’s going ahead with the construction of a $3 billion plant to produce nitrogen farm fertilizer at Spiritwood.

Construction is expected to begin this fall, and the plant is expected to begin operations in the first half of 2018.