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Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. has initiated a program to manage town gas plants that the company inherited when it began providing natural gas service to the towns where the gas plants existed. These plants produced gas from processed coal during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A byproduct of the gas manufacturing process was coal tar. The coal tar was sold as a valuable product, but manufacturing processes were not always effective in capturing all of the tar.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has assessed the gas plant sites within Montana-Dakota's territory and found that none pose a threat to the environment. With a desire to be a good corporate citizen, Montana-Dakota in 2000 remediated the gas plant site in Rapid City, S.D., and constructed a new service center on the site. In 2006, Montana-Dakota arranged to work with the Bismarck, N.D., School District to clean up a site that the school district had purchased from the company. Montana-Dakota continues to assess the status of other former gas plant sites for potential remediation.
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