Hyperion officials make stop in area
Hyperion Refining Vice President Preston Phillips and Eric Williams, chief spokesman for the company, stopped by the Journal office the other day just to say hello. Business editor Dave Dreeszen and I got a few questions in despite, his insistence they were just in the neighborhood.
The short answers to most were “We’re working on it,” and “yes.”
Phillips and Williams were in the Elk Point area for a friendly dinner meeting with Union County residents who had optioned land for the proposed $10 billion oil refinery and energy center.
One thing people in the southeast South Dakota county have been wondering is: Why hasn’t Hyperion filed releases in the Register of Deeds office on the roughly 6,000 acres worth of land purchase options it let lapse in August?
Phillips seemed a bit surprised that no releases had been filed yet and said he knows the attorneys are working on the documents and would probably be submitting them to Register of Deeds Jana Foltz very soon. As of Friday afternoon, Foltz had not received any.
A warning: Foltz said a woman came to her office last week wanting a copy of her purchase option document, saying she had lost her own copy. Foltz couldn’t help her; that particular option had not been filed. Property owners in the area likely remember that, by South Dakota law, purchase options don’t have to be filed, only closed land sales must be.
Another question we asked was whether the company is still planning to draw its water from shallow wells beside the Missouri River. Phillips seemed a bit surprised and said basically, yes, of course it was. He said it plans to get the water from wells it will install along the river near Elk Point. That’s where some of the very first options were acquired, long before the Gorilla was identified.
– Michele Linck
Tags: Elk Point, farmland, Gorilla, Hyperion, Oil, options, refinery, South Dakota, Union County, water