By Sara StrongWorking on the railroad isn’t easy, but it’s getting better for Minnesota Southern Railway operator Brent Polanchek. He presented a program update to the Rock County Board of Commissioners Monday.Polanchek said, "As you know, we’ve been working real hard. We still didn’t make money this year, but we didn’t lose as much as last year."It’s been more than three years since Polanchek started leading the local railway, which was in much worse shape then.He’s invested railway revenues and some of his own money to upgrade the operation.Polanchek was able to report a 20 percent increase in car movement, and a 17 percent increase in revenues. The first quarter of 2004 is looking better than the first quarter of 2003 already.He said Monday, "There’s still a lot of work to do. We figure we need another 200 cars a year to get to the break-even point."Polanchek has helped with the coal car derailments near Manley.He said Minnesota Special Liquids has been a wonderful customer and he hopes the Ben Steensma business continues to grow. The ethanol plant, Agri-Energy, has also used the railroad to transport its product.Feedlot inspections continueThe Level III feedlot inspections continue to show that most of the county’s livestock operations are clean and legally operating.The Land Management Office has found a handful of unregistered feedlots and is in the process of permitting those."I feel very comfortable that we’ll finish the site visits on the September-October timeline," LMO Director Eric Hartman said during his quarterly feedlot report to county commissioners.The site inventories slowed through the winter.Of the 618 registered feedlots, 471 have been contacted or visited. Of those visited, 372 have no environmental concerns.The most common environmental concern is runoff. The inventory process has also discovered 34 abandoned sites.The total cost for the inventory has been $88,581 so far.Crisis Center The Southwest Crisis Center in Luverne is continually increasing its caseload, but funding is dropping.The Rock County Commissioners got an update on that program Monday. The total five-county budget for the centers is $300,000, and a proposal calls for $88,000 to be cut.Last year, the five-county agency worked with 800 families, 50 of which had sexual assault cases. There were 90 families in Rock County who needed help with domestic violence.Raevette Loonan is the local Crisis Center director.
