Guy who works for dairy at heart of elimination of MPCA Citizen Board appointed to new fake board

When Governor Mark Dayton announced the creation of a new environmental citizens board back in August during a speech at an annual event organized by the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, those in attendance who welcomed the announcement probably weren't being careful for what they asked for.

After looking at a least one of the people listed in Elizabeth Dunbar's report Tuesday on Minnesota Public Radio, Dayton names 8 to new MPCA advisory committee,we can't help but suspect some activists are hoping for a strategic rewind.

Irony walks the western prairies

One of the appointees, Nathaniel Hultgren, serves as Agronomy Director for Meadow Star Dairy, according to a statement released by the Governor's office:

Nathaniel Hultgren is the Agronomy Director for Meadow Star Dairy, where he serves as a liaison between the dairy development and local farmers. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of Hultgren Farms, a 5,000 acre specialty crop farm, and previously was the Chief Financial Officer of the Bird Island Bean Company. He is a member of the Heritage Bank Community Advisory Committee and a past member of the Hawk Creek Country Club Board of Directors and the Willmar Airport Planning Commission.

Not released by the Governor's Office? That Meadow Star Dairy is part of Riverview Dairy; the denial of a permit for Riverview's proposed Baker Dairy in late summer 2014 by the original Citizens Board is what led to the successful effort to axe the real board with real (if seldom exercised) power.

We first posted about the issue in September 2014's post, MN12A: Does Backer want to strip citizens of ability to ask MPCA for environmental studies?. The issue came up again when the Senate Rural Task Force heard proposals from the dairy industry, as we reported shortly after the election in Co-founder of Senate Rural Task Force (est. 2014) attacks MPCA Citizen Board (est. 1967).

If getting Hultgren on this board isn't regulatory capture, we're not sure what is.

By the end of the special session, the real board was abolished, but environmental leaders held out hope for the new board. In August, the Star Tribune reported:

Steve Morse, executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, applauded Dayton for moving quickly to temper what groups like his saw as a blow to transparency and accountability.

"We hope we can come back at a later date, maybe 2017, and actually re-establish it in statute," Morse said. "This was a big mistake by the Legislature. They blew it and the governor is fixing what he can."

And at MPR, we recall reading:

Despite the new group's lack of authority, those who fought the Citizens' Board's abolition said Dayton's move is a good first step.

"Really if we don't keep the infrastructure and keep it moving, we won't be able to reinstate it, so I think he did exactly the right thing," said Bobby King, an organizer at the Land Stewardship Project.

Oops. But the irony doesn't stop there.

Irony--or complete corn?

Yes: there's more. For practical purposes, the Minnesota Corn Growers Association has been one of the greatest adversaries for Governor Dayton's drive to establish vegetative buffers. The current head of the Corn Growers is Noah Hultgren.

In November 2015, the association announced in West Central farmer elected President of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association for 2015-16:

Noah Hultgren is a family farmer in Raymond, Minn.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. (Oct. 6, 2015) – The Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA) state board of directors recently elected Noah Hultgren as its new president for 2015-16. Hultgren grows corn, soybeans, sugar beets, edible beans and canning vegetables on his family farm near Raymond, Minn., in Kandiyohi County.

Hultgren is a fourth-generation family farmer and was elected to the MCGA board in 2011. He replaces Bruce Peterson from Northfield, whose one-year term as president ended on Sept. 30.

“MCGA has accomplished a lot in recent years on behalf of corn farmers, especially in the areas of research, environmental stewardship and ethanol,” Hultgren said. “The next step is to build on those achievements and leverage them in a way that connects with non-farming consumers. Corn farmers have an amazing story to tell. We need to make sure we’re telling it and making our voices heard outside of the farm community.” ...

We wondered if there's a connection between Nathaniel and Noah. The database of farm subsidy recipients kept by the Environmental Working Group revealed that ownership shares of Hultgren Farms are held by these individuals:

Hultgren Farms ownership information from 2012 Kandiyohi County, Minnesota
Nancy A Hultgren							N/A*
Noah M Hultgren							N/A*
Duane L Hultgren							N/A*
Nathaniel L Hultgren							N/A*

Hultgren Farms also developed the concept and obtained the state permit in 2008-2009, we reported in Fehr factor? Strib story reports battle--that simply wasn't there--"ignited" over Willmar dairy, but dropped plans when the dairy industry crashed, selling the site to Riverview. Regardless of ownership, the Kandiyohi County Meadow Star site met with no significant opposition from neighbors, unlike the Baker Dairy.

Insiders Out?

Bluestem's readers may remember Noah Hultgren from the Pioneer Press article about this coming Saturday's Governor's Water Summit, Can we save Minnesota’s water? These 800 are going to try. The Raymond-area man decried how farmers were going to be outnumbered at that gathering:

. . .“My guess is farmers will be outnumbered at the summit, and if we have a lack of majority, we might feel on the defensive. But I know a lot of farmers look forward to the conversation about water quality. . . .

Poor baby. We're not sure how much more access to the Governor the Hultgren family could get at this point other than dog sitting or marrying an executive-level staff member. We can think of any number of Minnesotans who'd love to be this outnumbered as far as having Mark Dayton's attention.

Land Use Policy and Control

We doubt it's going to come up much at the Water Summit, but one of the battles suggested back at the 2014 gatherings of the Senate Rural Task force was the development of state control of permitting, including land use.

As Minnesota state law now stands, townships are able to drawn up land use ordinances; our vegetable garden in nearby Wang Township, Renville County, is able to be tended without the use of a gas mask because the township board enacted a restriction in number of animal units per feedlot back during the Hog Wars in the 1990s. The farmsteads in the township--and nearby Hawk Creek Township--are still mostly peopled. The area is close enough to regional centers like Marshall and Willmar--and the country air is still sweet--for the farmsteads to be desirable.

But Minnesota--with its publicly owned water and absence of water rights--is once again attracting attention as the giant livestock operations and dairies in the west grow less sustainable. That local control? A stumbling block for the meat and dairy industry.

As the screengrab from the On-Site Proceedings of the Minnesota Milk Producers' Dairy Management Workshops (above this section) illustrates, the Minnesota Milk Producers Association, having gotten rid of the board, now looks for "consistency" at every level. Heaven help those inconsistent townships (see the resolution on pages 2-3 of this pdf), but we doubt anyone will be encouraged to address land use zoning in St. Paul this Saturday.

A final thought

It's not for nothing that Bluestem is more grateful each day for our training at the Ozarks Famous Writers School. If we didn't understand the concept of irony we'd probably just shut down and sell insurance.

Photo: Aerial view of the Meadow Star Dairy, prior to when the cows came home, Via West Central Tribune.

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