MN AG Acts Against Polluting Dairy Feedlot

A couple weeks ago, the Excel Dairy confined animal feed operation (CAFO) stunk so bad that the Minnesota Department of Health recommended neighbors evacuate the area. Now if someone drives me from my home by being a bad neighbor, I expect that thug to face some punishment.

Well, a reader alerts me tha now Excel Dairy faces some real trouble. The dairy and its South Dakota owners, the all-too-appropriately named Dirty Dozen LLP*, must answer to a lawsuit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Minnesota's Attorney General Lori Swanson. We're not talking shutdown yet, but the AG and MPCA want the Marshall County District Court to force Excel Dairy to comply with environmental regulations and pay fines for the damage they've done.

Veblen's Prairie Ridge Management runs the dairy. CEO Rick Millner says the lawsuit is "misguided." The smell has gotten better since residents began leaving, he says. Of course, he lives in Veblen, right?

Good farmers and good businesses should also be good neighbors. You have a responsibility to make sure the stink, the noise, and whatever other damage you may do in the course of making a living never gets so bad that we have to call the attorney general to put a stop to it. Excel Dairy's disregard for its neighbors and the environment deserves the fullest punishment Minnesota law can muster.

I enjoy my cheeseburgers. Let's raise all the livestock we can, but let's do it in a way that the land and our neighbors can support.

*Ryan Schuster of the Grand Forks Herald reports that almost too-bad-to-be-true name for the owning company. My earlier reading identified the owner as Dairy Dozen. My apologies for whoever of us got it wrong.