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A confined animal feed operation (CAFO) near Thief River Falls, MN, stinks so bad that the Minnesota Department of Health is recommending neighbors leave their homes, not just for convenience, but for their health:
People who live near Excel Dairy reported headaches, nausea and weakness, and say they have measured levels of foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide in recent days more than 200 times higher than what state air quality standards allow.
Pollution authorities confirmed high levels of hydrogen sulfide at the dairy's property fence-line with their own equipment.
At least three families departed Sunday night, and more were reportedly leaving their homes Monday. About 40 people in a dozen homes live within a mile of the 1,500-cow dairy [Tom Meersman, "Stunk out of House and Home near a Dairy Feedlot," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2008.06.09].
No word on whether the owners of Excel Dairy will be paying the people they've driven away for motel bills and mileage. They do have the capital, however, to propose adding 500 more cattle to their operation.
Meersman reports that Excel Dairy is owned by Dairy Dozen of Veblen, SD. Dairy Dozen had "regulatory problems" at Excel Dairy last year and was fined $17,400 for not being able to keep its poop in a group at its New Horizon Dairy in Hoffman, MN.
The Dairy Dozen are also tied in with Prairie Ridge Management Company, the same outfit building the 7,100-head "Veblen East" CAFO up in Marhsall County.* Prairie Ridge Management also lobbied the South Dakota State Legislature to exempt big dairies from the Family Farm Act.
Prairie Ridge Management CEO Rick Millner has expressed a vision of more than quadrupling the number of cows in South Dakota. But many South Dakotans will he drive from their homes to realize that vision? And how much environmental damage will we let corporate farms wreak before we realize industrial agriculture is not a healthy way to raise food for people?
*Clarification: The Veblen facility is in Marshall County, South Dakota; the Excel Dairy is in Marshall County, Minnesota.
Could cowpooperative eminent domain abuse be our next challenge?
ReplyDeleteCorey here is a link from the Cheese Market News. Read the story "Dakotas recruit dairies from near and far to grow industry"
ReplyDeletemy favorite quote from the article is: "We have rural communities out here that are in school districts that welcome dairies with open arms,” Skaggs says.
Were here we stink get use to us! The dairy industry is a dirty messy industry that lies better in someone elses back yard and not ours I guess.
Cheese Market News... sure enough, there's the article!
ReplyDeleteI grew up with a farm in my back yard. I rather enjoyed the gentle breeze wafting the aroma of cow manure to our house -- it told me spring was here! But my neighbors' modest dairy herd never created an environmental hazard that forced us to close the windows or evacuate. Small-scale farming is great; it's that word industry that makes me nervous.
I am trying to find the articles about a couple dairy farms in minnesota that actually are on a larger scale. The unique thing is that they handle their wastes much better. They trap most of the methane gasses and then use the gas to turn into power to run the farm.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, these dairies that are moving in to our area the "I-29" corridor, are being told under the table move to the prairie those backwards folks have lax environemental laws and they wont raise a ruckus. Just like come spoil are land run an oil pipleline build a huge polluting refinery and so on.
So many of these farmers are modern day Robber Barons that are raping and pilaging the land for the almighty profit and have no roots in the communities or really care about the people here. Also, if you look at most of these large facilities English is far from the first spoken language. Lastly if you look at where the capital is coming from to build these dairies most of the people aren't even from the U.S. Many of the investors are from South Korea, Austrialia, New Zealand, Denmark, and other countries.
http://www.mnproject.org/pdf/Haubyrptsummary.pdf
ReplyDeletethere is the link to Haubenschild Dairy Farm and the summary of the study.
Small scale dairies are a thing of the past. The industrialization of agriculture has just begun.
ReplyDeleteI grew up on a dairy farm and many of my friends milked cows just like we did. Now I know of only a couple of dairies in all of Lake County.
We now have operations that count their cows by the hundreds and thousands. Get that many cows together and something is going to stink.
Manure smells when you spread it on fields. It can easily run off into streams and lakes during a heavy downpour.
Who really benefits from large dairies? Is it the local residents that have to deal with the smell, the investors that are making the money or the workers from south of the border sending money home to their family?
How does a guy like Rick Millner who up and left his failed dairy farm along with dead cows laying all over the place up and become a CEO of large dairy operations? He claims that the smell from the Excel Dairy operation is a concern to him as well as the people living around it..How can that be a concern to a person like him for leaving dead animals laying all over a dairy farm he purchased and operated until the bankers came after him, then he ran...He must have suckers for investors, and I bet with all the problems with Excel Dairy,,his pockets are still being lined while his investors funds are shrinking...I wonder if the banks ever caught up with him for his failed small dairy operation he once had, which I might add was a very profitable one in the previous owners hands..
ReplyDelete