The Fort Dodge area was considered a potential site for a major hog processing plant recently rejected in Mason City, and it could still be of interest to meatpacking company Prestage Farms.

Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich said local officials had “very preliminary conversations” with company officials before Mason City was chosen as the preferred site. He said the company wanted the city to pay much of the cost of extending water and sanitary sewer service to the plant.

“We weren’t willing to leverage our ratepayers against their success,” he said.

However, Bemrich did not rule out future discussions with the company.

“I think we’re still interested,” he said. “There’s still an interest, but we’re not willing to put up money at the rate they initially proposed.”

Prestage Farms spokeswoman Summer Lanier said the company is considering other Iowa locations, but wouldn’t name them, according to The Associated Press.

The AP reported that Webster City Mayor John Hawkins said officials in his community will be contacting the company.

According to Bemrich, those earlier discussions with Prestage Farms representatives focused on potential locations, land values and utilities. It was the cost of the city water and sanitary sewer utilities that proved to be the big stumbling block.

Bemrich said the city doesn’t cover the costs of extending water and sewer mains to new plants. Instead, it makes the companies pay those costs with their water and sewer bills. Companies he said, are required to enter “take or pay agreements” in which they either use enough water and sewer service to cover the costs or they pay for the costs even if their utility usage isn’t enough.

“We have a track record of doing that,” he said.

The plants in the ag industrial park west of Fort Dodge called Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation were subject to such take or pay agreements.

The proposed plant would cost $240 million and employ about 1,800 people.

Fort Dodge has had a long history with the meat packing industry. George A. Hormel Co. and IBP both had plants in the city. The Hormel plant was along the Des Moines River, while the IBP facility was on Avenue O. They both closed in the 1980s. There are no major meat packing plants in or near the city now.