MOTT - A hot night in the Hettinger County Courthouse at Mott on Tuesday didn't end in any progress on whether a nearby abandoned radar base can be zoned to allow it to be a plant to make plastic water bottles.

After discussion on the topic - at times a bit fractious - the Hettinger County Zoning Board decided to table the matter for more study.

What the county needs to know is exactly who has zoning authority out in Havelock Township northwest of Regent where the abandoned facility is located.

The township board adopted zoning regulations several years ago when there was talk of turning the fenced-in brick facility into a detention center.

The U.S. Air Force built the facility in the 1980s to conduct low-level training flights and abandoned it in the early '90s, selling it and 10 acres to Hettinger County.

The county has since sold the building and land to Doug Buzalsky, a former New England resident, who wants to turn it into a blow-mold plant to make plastic bottles for other water bottlers.

The county also has a zoning code and met to consider an application from Buzalsky to rezone the land from agricultural to commercial.

Kerry Schorsch lives on land adjacent to the radar base and chairs the township zoning board.

Schorsch asked the county zoners to let the township decide the matter.

He said the township wants to act on a conditional use permit, rather than a commercial zoning application.

Schorsch said that if zoned commercial, the facility could be used for anything, naming a slaughter or render plant, medical waste incinerator or junkyard as unfavorable possibilities.

There are about 26 people living in the township. Buzalsky, who attended by speakerphone from his home in Virginia, said he hopes to employ one person and more eventually.

County Auditor Roy Steiner said the county's legal advice is that both entities have zoning authority and both can approve an application, with the most restrictive conditions enforceable. He said if either denies the application, it's "dead."

Schorsch disagreed with that, and without a legal adviser at the meeting, the county zoners decided to wait.

The township has already published notice that it will take up Buzalsky's conditional use permit application July 28.

In the discussion, Buzalsky's father, Gilbert, said Schorsch has already expressed opposition to his son's plans.

Schorsch said those objections related to a potential detention center, not to a bottling plant.

Township zoning would prevent anyone currently under sentence for a crime, even on a work permit, from being employed, Schorsch said.

He said the board adopted that provision to maintain security and safety in the township.