Monday CAFO News
Dairy owners applied for the permit through the state Department of Environmental Management earlier this year, disclosing on their application that the 2,200 dairy cattle expected to live on site would create nearly 22 million gallons of waste a year.
Before issuing a permit and allowing the project to move forward, state officials would make a draft available for public comment. That public meeting is expected to be scheduled in Grant County during the first part of July. Vreba-Hoff hopes to receive the permit from the state and start construction later this year.
But the Grant County Commissioners last month began a process that could put a final decision on the dairy into local hands. They asked the county Area Plan Commission to consider changing county policy on CAFOs, in part, by requiring operations that want to build the operations on land zoned for agriculture to obtain a special exception.
That and other changes will first be discussed in public at Tuesday’s Area Plan Commission meeting, although several votes would have to take place before the ordinance could be officially altered. If the special exception comes to pass, however, the fate of Friesian Meadows could come down to a vote by the county Board of Zoning Appeals.
“You’ve got to ask what’s the payoff?” Van Buren resident John Street said, while showing a map of the oil wells, which he said is also being studied by a professional geologist. “What is your water worth? It may not be today and it may not be tomorrow, but what’s it worth? A bunch of dairy cows?”
Indiana’s confined feeding law dates to the mid-1970s, but the standards owners must meet have become more stringent in the last decade, said Bruce Palin, assistant commissioner for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Office of Land Quality.
“There’s been a significant focus on this particular industry because it has grown so much and there are much larger farms now being established,” Palin said. “The quantity of manure they produce is significantly more, and it presents a greater potential for some type of a discharge to occur or for material to have an adverse effect on surface water.”
Willemsen’s dairy peeks out from behind the rolling fields visible from the driveway of Nancy Zion’s home, in a wooded lot just outside of Frankton.
“The worst part is we get a smell when the weather is just right,” Zion said, noting that the smells are usually stronger in the evenings, and that on this particular day a potential buyer is coming to see her house around that time. “And we’ve got a lot more trucks coming down the roads, but that doesn’t bother me none.”
June 12th, 2006 10:20
Several members of CAFF went to Continental, Ohio Friday, June 9 to tour the Wezbra Dairy. The first thing I smelled was singed hair - they run a torch over the cow’s udder prior to milking to remove any hair fibers. The owner says the cow doesn’t mind, but we watched those cows react, and I think the cow DOES mind! This dairy has 1,150 cows (considerably less than 2,200!!) and lots of those cows have no tails. That “rumor” has been confirmed. Cows are not bedded in sand at this dairy - they have a manure separation system, so these cows sleep in recycled dry manure.
The temperature was in the mid-70s, and there was a breeze blowing across the separator and the smaller lagoon. It is most unattractive, it smells, and I do not want one 366 yards from my back door.
June 21st, 2006 22:36
Because of the increasing size of dairies and the suburban sprawl that many rural areas across the country are experiencing, the odor can lead to a lot of unneighborly behavior–understandbly so. Some microbial treatment systems have proven to be an environmentally friendly way to clean up lagoon water and greatly reduce odor.