Bluestem ordinarily admires the work of Tony Kennedy at the Star Tribune; none was in 2013 better on covering the disputes over frac sand mining in Minnesota, both on the ground in the Driftless region and at the state capitol.
But in his latest article, Standoff over a huge dairy opens a new chapter in Minnesota's battle over big feedlots, Kennedy's reporting gives a misleading impression of what's going on with the Riverview Dairy's expansion in Kandiyohi, Stevens and Traverse Counties.
First, there's a misleading timeline that implies the August MPCA CItizens Board's request for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prompted the Fehrs to "secure" two new sites.
Second, Kennedy reports that "the Fehr’s two new proposed dairies have ignited additional battles." In fact, there's never been a battle about the Meadow Star Dairy in Kandiyohi County, while the "battle" over Dollymount Dairy in Traverse is nothing new.
That battle wasn't triggered by MPCA Citizens Board decision, however much that talking point might fit the agenda of the Ag Mafia as it tries to destroy environmental review and local control. If anything, Bluestem believes that the unique decision was seized on by the Ag Mafia as an excuse to get rid of the citizens board and local control.
Meadow Star and Dollymount not new projects
Neither of Riverview's other two dairies are new projects, having already secured permits from the MPCA years before the August 2014 Citizens Board meeting . Kennedy's article omits this key fact. He reports:
The jolt [of the August 2104 decision by the MPCA Citizens Board] didn’t stop the Fehrs, who quickly secured two other sites for major expansions.
Neither site is new. In fact, in responding to public comments about Riverview's earlier record of compliance, the agency noted in a document published before the Citizens Board met:
The Proposer owns and operates eight other active dairy facilities permitted by the MPCA: Riverview Dairy, West River Dairy, District 45 Dairy, Moore Calves, Hawk Creek Calves, Dublin Dairy, East Dublin Dairy, and Chippewa Calves. Additionally, the Proposer owns and has permitted two other facilities that have yet to be constructed: Dollymount Dairy and Meadow Star Dairy. [p. 62, emphasis added]
Permitted by the MPCA in 2009, the Meadow Star Dairy in Kandiyohi County was acquired in 2012 by the Fehrs, along with its state and county permits. "Battles" with neighbors over environmental issues were not a contributing factor to the delay in starting the site.
Rather, this new dairy was put on hold because of a downturn in the dairy industry. As one of the Fehrs told a Willmar journalist, "It was 'about as bad as you can get.'"
In 8,800-head dairy OKed for operation west of Willmar, an article by Carolyn Lange published in various Forum Communications sites in November 2014, we learn:
The Meadow Star Dairy had been in the works for about five years.
Initiated by Hultgren Farms of rural Pennock, with support from Riverview, the developers had obtained a conditional use permit from Kandiyohi County in 2008 and a permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2009. But with a downturn in the dairy industry, the project was put on hold.
“The dairy industry went through a hard period during that time,” said Duane Hultgren, from Hultgren Farms.
It was “about as bad as you can get,” Fehr said.
The county permit was renewed in 2010, but developers failed to win approval of a request to change the county ordinance to allow high-density, on-site labor housing for ag businesses.
The project was again put on hold and the county permit expired.
There is no time limit on the MPCA permit, which is attached to the specific site. Then, around 2012, Hultgren Farms sold the land, with the MPCA permit still intact, to Riverview.
Also during that time, St. Johns Township took action to create its own zoning board.
The final piece came this year when the dairy industry took a sharp turn upward. The positive economy and Riverview’s over-abundance of dairy heifers made the timing right to build a new facility in Kandiyohi County, Fehr said.
“We have cows and we need a home for them,” Fehr said.
Following a public hearing on Nov. 7 in Pennock, the permit for Meadow Star Dairy was unanimously approved by the township.
Yep. Riverview Dairy LLC had secured that that site--and the county and MPCA permits to accompany it--by buying it in 2012, after helping the Hultgrens develop it in 2008.
Traverse County history goes back to 2002
As for the Dollymount Dairy, the MPCA made the EAW for the proposed dairy available for public comment in April 2009. That document is archived here, and the Signatory Document for the approved EAW is here, dated July 29, 2009. The EQB Monitor for April 20, 2009 notes that a project at the Dollymount site "was previously proposed in 2005, but the process was not completed."
The 2009 approval of the second application notes:
In 2006, the MPCA prepared another EAW for a dairy project in Section 4 of Dollymount Township. An EAW was published and public comments were received on this project, which was also called Dolymount Dairy; however, the EAW w as withdrawn prior to the Board meeting, and no final decision was made on whether that project required an EIS or could be permitted as designed
But the history of the site and its environs goes back even farther to 2002. The 2009 Citizens Board findings of fact (page 15 of this document) notes in the Previous Environmental Review section:
3. No previous environmental review action has been undertaken for this Project. In 2002, a different group of project proposers applied for a permit to construct a dairy facility to be called Dollymount Dairy at a nearby site in Section 9 of Dollymount Township, and a draft EAW was prepared by the MPCA. However, that project was withdrawn before a final EAW was prepared, so no environmental review was completed.
4. In 2006, the MPCA prepared another EAW for a dairy project in Section 4 of Dollymount Township. An EAW was published and public comments were received on this project, which was also called Dolymount Dairy; however, the EAW was withdrawn prior to the Board meeting, and no final decision was made on whether that project required an EIS or could be permitted as designed.
5. The present Dollymount Dairy project differs significantly from the preceeding proposals insofar as it proposes to use a different barn design with different bedding material and a different manure storage area design, including an anaerobic digester to process the manure and collect the bio-gas for use in generating electricity, the use of manure solids separators, and covered manure storage basins.
If there's a delay in starting up a dairy on this location, the Ag Mafia can't lay that inaction solely at the feet of environmental and pro-family scale farming advocates.
To sum up, both "new" proposals have been permitted by the MPCA since 2009, and various "Dollymount Dairy" projects have been on the radar of the MPCA since 2002.
Additionally, because of the brightening prospects in the dairy industry in 2014, the Fehrs approached Traverse County government about permitting the Dollymount Dairy project before the MPCA Citizens Board asked for additional environmental review, county records reveal.
According to the minutes of the Traverse County Board for August 19, 2014, the process of local permitting for the Dollymount Dairy project was already in play, with a county staff member briefing the board about a public hearing for the project on August 27, 2014:
Sara Gronfeld/Soil and Water/Planning and Zoning - Gronfeld discussed the upcoming hearing for the Dollymount Dairy CUP which will be August 27, 2014 at 9:30 A. M. at the Wheaton Legion. She invited the Commissioners to attend and listen to any comments presented at the hearing. . . .
That's right. The site and state permit were for the Dollymount Dairy in Traverse County were secured by the Fehrs over five years before the MPCA denied the permit for the Baker Dairy in Stevens County. Traverse County had set a permit hearing that would coincidentally occur the day after the Citizens Board meeting.
As we mentioned, the EQB Monitor for April 20, 2009 notes that the Dollymount "was previously proposed in 2005, but the process was not completed."
In our next section, we'll look at why this project--in its various iterations--has prompted conflict in Traverse County.
That conflict can't be laid at the feet of the MPCA Citizens Board--and there's nothing in the Kandiyohi County project that can be described as an environmental "battle."
Imaginary armies clashing in Kandiyohi County
Readers might conclude from Kennedy's timeline--which omits any information about when the Fehrs secured those two other dairies--that the Dollymount and Meadow Star Dairies are open targets in this "new battle over feedlots:"
Across the state, the Fehr’s two new proposed dairies have ignited additional battles. One, near Willmar, will contain 9,500 animals. The other, called Dollymount, was recently re-approved for 7,500 cows and heifers near Lake Traverse.
“I will dread the day when I see the construction equipment come by,’’ said Marilyn Mathias, a Dollymount neighbor who organized unsuccessful opposition to the project.
We challenge the Star Tribune to demonstrate what battle occurred over the creation of Meadow Star Dairy in Kandiyohi County, because we're not seeing it in the Lange article and the MPCA documents for 2009 (three citizens wrote comment letters, a far cry from the pages and pages of letters in response to the Baker Dairy).
After reading the article, Bluestem reached out by phone to Land Stewardship Project organizer Paul Sobocinski to see if LSP had heard from local citizens about the Meadow Star Dairy project. According to Sobocinski, the group had not.
That's three strikes--and so Meadow Star Dairy is out as an example of a "standoff" and an "additional battle" over environmental review. But then, the Strib article doesn't tell readers the project has the state, county and township permits it needs. Details, details.
On the other hand, the Dollymount Dairy difficulties, like its permit from the MPCA, predate the MPCA Citizen Board's request for an EIS by the Baker Dairy (as Sobocinski pointed out in an August blog post on the LSP website, the only such decision in the history of the agency).
The Dollymount Dairy project, on the other hand, has a much longer and more checkered past that suggests that this "battle" wasn't ignited by the August 2014 decision by the Citizens Board. According to The Riverview Way, a 2010 article in Agweek, Traverse County hasn't been the most welcoming place for the dairy:
The same year [2005], Riverview tried in vain build a heifer feedlot in Redpath Township of Minnesota’s Traverse County, but were turned away because of local resident concerns about labor, odor, and traffic. . . .
Also in 2008, they were turned away a second time in Traverse County, this time in an effort to build a new dairy. . . .
We suspect that there's much more to the Traverse County story--and the 2009 board packet includes a list of 13 letters and staff responses to the letters, though not the letters themselves. We suspect they're still on file at the agency.
Before believing what he heard in the lobbies of the state capitol and office buildings, Kennedy ought to have checked the state and county records, and his editors ought to have insisted on mentioning such details in public records in the articles the Strib posts.
Picky, we know.
Sadly, this is only the most recent example of talking points trumping document searches by the Star Tribune. One can lead readers to believe that no Minnesota Republican knew about the business that Meyers Associates was in if one doesn't mention the 2006 IRRRB loan application included in the members' packet or the fact that Minnesota House Ways and Means Committee chair Jim Knoblach represents St. Cloud, home to major employer Meyers.
Photo: One of the Riverview Dairy LLC's barns.
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