Janesville City Council approves $3.3 million deal with Seneca Foods

Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Marcia Nelesen

Several business people at Monday’s council meeting lauded the work Janesville city staff did to keep a Seneca Foods expansion here, and the president of Forward Janesville offered to partner with the city to market the new anaerobic wastewater pretreatment lagoon the city is building.

The city was able to lower Seneca’s wastewater costs by building the pretreatment facility outside the company’s front door on East Conde Street.

The $3.3 million cost will be paid for in about a dozen years with the additional revenues the city’s wastewater treatment plant will earn from the extra processing line and by the sale back to Seneca of methane produced by the lagoon.

In addition, the lagoon might draw other food processing plants here.

The council voted unanimously to enter into a TIF agreement for the project.

Seneca will build an 80,000-square-foot addition that can house up to five new packaging lines. The company agrees to employ an additional 25 people over 10 years.

Read the full article.