Submitted Photo Rugby business owner Craig Wollenburg inspects a hemp plant.

RUGBY – A local businessman is moving forward with plans to bring a CBD processing facility to Rugby.

The Pierce County Tribune in Rugby reported Craig Wollenburg spoke to the City of Rugby Planning and Zoning Commission earlier this month to seek a variance for a facility that would extract cannabidiol, or CBD oil from hemp plants. He submitted the $245,000 winning bid for the former Windshield Doctor building from Heart of America Medical Center for his facility on Monday.

Wollenburg said the facility would crush hemp plants and use chilled carbon dioxide gas to extract oil from the biomass, or leaves, stems and flowers.

Wollenburg told the Planning and Zoning Commission he hopes to employ six people at the facility. Operations will begin depending on zoning and variance issues still to be worked out with the city.

“Hemp plants have very little THC, which is a cannabinoid that creates the hallucinogenic affect,” Wollenburg explained. “Hemp plants are low in THC but high in CBD content. CBD is what you see in products such as topical creams, ointments, etc.”

Wollenburg has plots of hemp plants on farms in the Rugby area, and dries the plants in sheds near the fields.

North Dakota has some seed processing plants but Wollenburg said there are few processing facilities that extract CBD oil, which comes from parts of hemp plants other than seeds. Wollenburg uses feminized plants so their energy goes to CBD production rather than producing seeds.

“It’s exciting,” Wollenburg said of the emerging CBD business. “It’s a market that’s growing.”

– Sue Sitter

The Pierce County Tribune