Concerned Citizens of Grant County

This thread is designated for interaction between the Concerned Citizens of Grant County amongst themselves and with the public.

The non-profit group Concerned Citizens of Grant County was formed this summer in opposition to a 5,700-cow dairy proposed to be located in Kilborn Township about five miles north of Twin Brooks, South Dakota. The application for the dairy permit was withdrawn, but Concerned Citizens of Grant County continues with an interest in the safety and economic sense of having Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Grant County.

The Mill Valley Dairy was found by a surveyor to be less than one-half mile from somebody else's well.

Grant County Director of Equilization Darwin Conrad said that the Grant County Planning and Zoning Commission followed the letter of the law and that the well owner would have to take Mill Valley Dairy to court to get anything done about it.

Either the letter of the law or the Grant County Planning and Zoning Commission is wrong.

Which one is it?

I am so glad we can discuss this issue. Large feedlots are in large part corporate farms. Although large feedlots give the false pretense they are family farmers they generally are not.

Corporate farms are designed to create profits normally at the costs of others. Is the Grant County Equalization Board risking the removal of an existing well to another family so that one corporate farm can get rich at the costs of another family farmer.

Perhaps this taking of ones water could be considered an inverse condemnation proceeding and perhaps the county of Grant will end up paying thousands of dollars for the taking of this land.

Do the taxpayers really want this additional expense in Grant County? Not I!

If you are a Grant County resident, do you know how to contact the county commission and planning and zoning commission?

Grant County Commissioners

Gene Mann, 515 S. 4th St., Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-5862

Doug Stengel, 47802 147th St., Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-5022

David Forrette, 206 Lakeview Drive, Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-1615

Paul Dummann, 45745 149th St., Summit, SD 57266, 605-398-6476

Clayton Tucholke, 16221 477th Ave., Labolt, SD 57246, 605-623-4347


Grant County Planning and Zoning Commissioners

Gene Mann, 515 S. 4th St., Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-5862

Nancy Johnson, 14962 483rd Ave., Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-5600

Gary Lindeman, 14654 480th Ave., Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-6406

Tom Adler, 15096 Adler Drive, Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-5113

Geoff Street, 16134 484th Ave., Revillo, SD 57259, 605-623-4459

Richard Hansen, 46746 152nd St., Twin Brooks, SD 57269, 605-432-4175

Lori Brandt, 15222 485th Ave., Milbank, SD 57252, 605-432-5715


Grant County Court House, 210 East 5th Ave., Milbank, SD 57252

Grant County Auditor Karen Layher, 605-432-6711, fax line 605-432-9004

Grant County Director of Equalization Darwin Conrad, 605-432-6532

Grant County Planning and Zoning Commission, 605-432-6532

Here is what the newspaper said about the commissioners meeting that mentioned that dairy allegedly being too close to that well:

Grant County Commissioners Proceedings

September 30, 2008

The Grant County Commission met at 8 AM with Commissioners Dummann,
Mann, Stengel and Tucholke present. Chairman Mann presided.
Commissioner Forrette was absent.

Grant Center Twp: Supervisor Keith Christians stated the township
board is concerned about the road by Mill Valley Dairy. The township
has spent dollars for graveling the road twice in addition to regular
maintenance. The supervisors met with the owners of the dairy and
discussed re-grading the half mile north of the dairy, but have
determined the whole mile should be re-graded as a lot of traffic
enters the dairy from the south bringing in feed and supplies. He
asked if the commissioners would be willing to take over the one mile
of road and add the one mile of road to the county road system or if
the county would upgrade the road and then the township would
maintain the road. With over 40 miles to maintain in the township and
yearly revenues of $36,000, the township does not believe it has
sufficient resources to maintain this one mile stretch of road. The
approximate cost to re-grade a mile of road is $50,000. The
commission stated the board would be willing to consider taking over
the road and asked the Hwy. Supt. and the Auditor to research the
process for transferring the one mile of road to the county road
system and to let Keith know the process to follow.

Zoning: Twp. Supervisor Keith Christians asked if there is a time
frame for a conditional use permit to be used or are they always
active once the permit is approved. DOE Conrad explained a
conditional use permit is good for 2 years. If the project has not
been started within a 2 year period, the conditional use permit does
expire. A discussion was held on the enforcement of conditions placed
on the conditional use permit. Chairman Mann explained if a complaint
is brought to the P & Z Board, the complaint will be investigated.
Also discussed was the one-half mile set backs for a CAFO to a well
location. The engineer preparing the site drawing for a dairy does
the measurements to determine the one-half mile setback line. The
question arose if all wells are being located and what recourse a
landowner has. The landowner can appeal to the circuit court.

Here’s a place to look to find the letter of the law for the CAFO permitting process.

http://www.state.sd.us/DENR/DES/Surfacewater/feedlot.htm

http://www.state.sd.us/DENR/ENVIRO/feedlot.htm

Darwin Conrad said that if Mill Valley Dairy is proven to be less than one-half mile from the well, the engineer Don Larson of Larson Engineering of Milbank stands to lose his engineering license.

Mill Valley Dairy was a project of Hammink Dairy Consulting & Development.

http://www.hamminkdairy.com/?p=projects

An open house was held at Mill Valley Dairy on July 19, 2008 by Ag United for South Dakota.

http://madvilletimes.blogspot.com/2008/08/higher-feed-costs-send-cattle-to.html

Although milking 600 cows this summer, Mill Valley Dairy is permitted for 2,000 cows.

http://www.state.sd.us/doa/ag%20policy/zoningco_list/GrantCountyz1.pdf

How about enforcing that Mill Valley Dairy can't use the barns which are too close to the well?

Wondering if mouthpiece and lightingboy and maybe some others could define "factory farm" and "large feedlot". If an operation is milking 500 cows now but is permitted for 1500 is it not a factory farm now but will be later? It would help me understand your viewpoint if I new what kind of livestock operations, what size, what ownership, what kind of employees and number of each is OK by your standards. And what do you think of a setback from surface waters such as creeks and lakes; for all new concentrated animal feeding operations of 100 animal units and up with a sliding scale making the setback for the 5,000 unit operations over 500 feet? Is there already a setback from surface water in Minnesota? That's a particular thing that all conservation people I have spoken with favor. So two questions: what parameters are there for the OK livestock operations and what do you think of setbacks from surface waters?

Corporate farms create economic problems for rural communities.

LindaS attempted to label others as environmentalists! This is as if they is a kind of cuss word.

Here are the answers to your questions:

Animal Waste Utilization and Application Setbacks:
The following manure spreading setbacks shall be adhered to:
Surface Incorporated or Injected
1. Watercourse, streams, rivers, lakes 300' 10'
wetlands, drainage ditches
2. Municipal well 1,000' 1,000'
3. Private wells 200' 200'
4. Residential area (10 or more homes) 500' 100'
5. Neighboring dwelling 500' 100'
6. Urban Expansion Management District 500' 100'
7. 10-year Flood Plain Prohibited Permitted
8. Filed tile intakes 100' 10'
9. Road right-of-way spreading Prohibited Prohibited

Congressional testimony for years has indicated that corporate farming created negative population growth. Grant County is a perfect example! As we promote corporate farming our population decrease.

Congressional testimony indicates corporate farming eliminates steady income that supports families and instead replaces these jobs with minimum wage jobs and illegal immigrants.

Corporate farming failed in Russia but yet we now must give it try. Why?

I am sure that the greed in this country support corporate farms but we must rise above this and look to the future of our rural communities.

Thank you lightingboy for trying to answer my question. I appreciate your integrity identifying yourself and being honest.

It was really good of you to contact me after my letter to the editor.

No one else from GCCC bothered.

GCCC printed a lot of false statements in the paper, totally twisted and unsubstantiated things. No one signed as author of the ads. No one stood behind the statements.

I wrote to the paper, addressing a public situation publicly and also to give the people hurt by the GCCC statements notice that I for one did not want to divide the community into for and against camps. The rest of the community knows that we have a lot of issues to work on together.

As time goes by I am sure we will. Again thanks for trying to answer my question. I am going to leave this forum since you and I are the only ones with real identities and we already communicate.

Au Revoir

Mouthpiece didn't read my post before replying.

I didn't label anyone environmentalist. Envirommentalist as a general definition ascribe to modern environmental science and want to clean up existing pollution problems and to avoid new ones. I am all for that. The GCCC in public is about stopping new livestock operations of a certain unspecified size(large) and ownership type and number of employees, but that is not all. Preserving a rural way of life or returning to a County with many small farms is also one of their issues and from the newspaper ads from conversations with members that is what the GCCC is trying to promote by stopping new large livestock operations.

Thank you for your response but did you address my economic issues?

I did address your questions as to Minnesota setback requirements.

I do apologize. You did not call me an environmentalists. You said I belonged to conservation groups.

For your information the Hammink Dairy is involved as a non-sued out party in a feedlot case in Canby, Minnesota. It is alleged that the manure, dust, flies and noise issues have been shipped away from their plant (corporate farm) in South Dakota and residents in Minnesota are now complaining about the issue. At least the foreign corporation is making a profit.

That was my point in the beginning. The corporation makes money but has economic and environmental issues tranferred to the taxpayers.

I didn't call mouthpiece a conservationist, I ddn't call him/her anything. I am proposing expanding the setback from fisheries to include intermittent streams in Grant County, the County ordinances in Grant are fairly detailed and thoughtful but there are a few things I would ad. I am a conservationist, and that was my official title when I worked for the good ole US Gov. I am proud of it. Conservationist is a term used for a long time, late 1930's. Generally a conservationist believes that our natural resources should be used but not used up. Generally they believe in best managment practices that are proven to work. Natural Resources Conservation Districts, for instance hire Conservationists. To be a conservationist you have to believe in some kind of manure management for livestock farming, something that has been proven to keep the manure out of the streams and rivers. Conservation in States that spend more on the environment than South Dakota have developed manure management systems for livestock operations down to 20 milk cows. There's different ways to do it. Conservationists also believe in nutrient managment of crop fertilizer according to proven practices. I spoke with people who either make their living taking care of watersheds or practice manure management or help people use best management practices (google that it is a term coined by the US government). They thought having setbacks from intermittent streams would be fine. GCCC has no public comment on the subject.

False statements in the paper: "most of the workers at local dairies are illegal" that's a strong charge and if true the originator of the statement should be on the phone with INS. There was also a statement in the paper that nitrogen subserface flow can occur at recommended rates, refering to the Riverview Kilborn project. There was a research paper from the mid 90's that irrigated bermuda grass with swine manure concentrations to equal the recommended rates for growing bermuda grass (Riverview would not be using irrigation) ; that's rates recommended for maximum bermuda grass yield not the recommended rates in SD modern manure management plans. The subsurface flow, which is not the same as leaching at all and not the same as runofff that reaches a stream either, at the recommended rate met drinking water standards for nitrates. The possiblility of nitrogen leaching into the ground water or running off into the watershed from a modern South Dakota manure managment plan of a CAFO is a lot less of a chance than leaching or runoff from regular farms. Ordinary grain farmers don't use setbacks from wetlands or wells and are free to apply whatever amount of nutrients the want.

So go ahead and find the proof that nitrogen subsurface flow occurs even at recommened rates for CAFOs these days in South Dakota. And also explain how nitrogen moving in cropland soil at the concentrations expected would have a worse effect on our environment than the application of chemical fertilizer at the rates co ops recommend. Every acre of cropland regulated in a CAFO manure management plan recieves an amount of manure calculated not to runoff or leach. Compare that to unregulated fertilizer application with no setbacks from wetlands or wells under regular farming. Applying manure on the same section of land for 50 years without soil testing would build up the phosphorous test and phosphorous might leach and any soil eroding from that field would be high phosphorous and contribute to algae blooms in the watershed. CAFOs are not allowed to do that. Large regulated operators and large unregulated operators and small unregulated operators can all benefit from knowledge about the soil. We are all in this together and it's not a civil war at all.

So prove that most of the workers at the local dairies are illegal. And as soon as you do then call the authorities and stop it. If you were a legal immigrant trying to better the life of your family it would hurt to be called illegal.

Also prove that the Riveriview workers would not contribute to the local economy. Did you know what the average wage was going to be? How could they possibly live here without buying groceries?

I think these three statements are enough for now. If you are busy and it takes time to track down the proof, don't worry I won't be back to read the forum for a while anyway.

Thanks for asking, we don't agree that it's a civil war like situation but that's ok.

Large corporate farms cause a decrease in population in rural communities and negatively effect the infrastructure.

Answer the question: Corporate farms failed from both an economic and environmental standpoint in Russia. What evidence do you have they will work here.

The litigation with the farm in Minnesota is an inverse condemnation proceeding in which the county may be required to pay neighbors for the taking of the property rights of the corporate farm neighbors. Seventeen acres may cost the county around 1/2 of a million dollars. This is a right under the United States Constitution and the South Dakota Constitution. Can Grant county afford to buy out the neighbors of large corporate farms?

What happens when a lagoon leaks into water supplies. This remains a potential problem with VALEDCO in Minnesota.

I am hoping that Minnesota will not let the manure, dust, smell and the problems created by South Dakota CAFO's into the state but the judicial system will make that decision.

I made contact with the Grant County Economic Development Corporation heads, and the Grant County Economic Development Corporation is to discuss the Concerned Citizens of Grant County at its next meeting.

I attempted to contact Bill Schuneman, president of Milbank Community Foundation, which has Midwest Dairy Institute.