The Honorable Tim Pawlenty

Office of the Governor

130 State Capitol

75 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

St Paul, MN  55155

Subject: Emergency Declaration Request

Dear Governor Pawlenty:

The Minnesota Grain and Feed Association, which represents the interests of hundreds of country elevators in the State, is respectfully requesting you to issue a Declaration of Emergency, providing temporary relief from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s hours-of-service requirements for a period of 45 days. A declaration is needed to ensure that sufficient supplies of propane are available to meet the needs of grain elevators and farmers in drying a very wet soybean and corn crop, in addition to meeting ordinary heating demands.

The cool and exceptionally wet fall has led to major delays in harvesting and has adversely affected the moisture level of the crop, both in soybeans and corn.  In a typical year, soybeans come off the field with a moisture content low enough to store without artificial drying being needed. This year, the soybean crop high moisture content has required artificial drying to reduce the moisture content to a level appropriate for storage. As of today, less than 60% of the soybean crop has been harvested, compared to 98% at this time last year.  The corn crop harvest is also way behind last year (maybe 10% harvested) and the moisture level in the crop is also exceptionally high. The result is millions of bushels of soybeans and corn needing to be artificially dried.

These harvest conditions have put a lot of pressure on propane suppliers to keep up with this exceptional demand from grain elevator and on-farm grain drying operations. In additional, Enterprise Terminals and Storage began (today) a limited allocation of propane off its pipeline, resulting in long delays (5-6 hours) in loading propane transport trucks. This is guaranteed to add to an already existing shortage of supply reaching our member elevators and farms equipped with grain dryers. We need the Declaration of Emergency, providing temporary relief from the hours-of-service requirement, to allow propane suppliers to meet these crop conditioning and preservation needs and avoid current and future losses resulting from high moisture grain.

Thank you for your consideration of this declaration request.

Sincerely,

Bob Zelenka

Executive Director