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Read about a recent
manure spill from a mega-dairy lagoon in Maryland. Do we want
to take a chance that something like this could happen to
Carrington?
Manure spill could mean months of temporary water supply
Originally
published
January 30, 2008
By Gina Gallucci - Frederick News-Post Staff - Maryland
Photo by
Sam Yu -
Vicki Poole holds a glass of
water on Tuesday afternoon that she got out of a home faucet
last Thursday. The Poole family lives on Glade Road near
Walkersville.
WALKERSVILLE -- For town
residents who remember the 1999 sewage spill that forced them to use
a makeshift water supply for five months, this could be worse. Test
results this week from untreated water show the levels of bacteria
and E. coli are greater than in 1999, said Mike Marschner, director
of the county's Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management.
The contamination is the result of a manure lagoon pipe that burst
last week, said town commissioner Chad Weddle. The burst actually
created two spills, one on Jan. 22 and a second Friday night into
Saturday morning.
This spill took about four days to infiltrate the town's water
supply, compared to 1999 when it took nine days, Marschner said.
These findings were released during a press conference Tuesday
afternoon at Town Hall. The meeting room was packed with media, town
and county officials and concerned residents.
More...
Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008
Farmer apologizes for massive manure spill
~~~
"One fear is that what happened in
Walkerton, Canada, could happen in our community. In the small
Ontario town, which is the site of several dairy farms, seven people
died and 2,300 became ill ... after drinking water polluted
with E. coli, a bacteria contained in cow manure. Cow manure washed
into a nearby well after a heavy rain, causing the health crisis,
says Peter Rehak, spokesperson for the Walkerton Inquiry, a public
commission established to investigate the tragedy."
-Metro Times - Detroit-
|
Links to Informative Web Sites (Page 2)
[Please click on the blue link at the
beginning of each excerpt to peruse the entire web site.]
June 20, 2008
State sues pungent dairy farm near Thief
River Falls - By TOM MEERSMAN /
StarTribune
updated 9:32 a.m. CT, Fri., June. 20, 2008
A large dairy in northwestern Minnesota with odors severe enough to
drive nearby residents from their homes last week now faces legal
problems.
State Attorney General Lori Swanson and the Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency today jointly sued Excel Dairy, just north of Thief
River Falls, charging that the 1,544-cow operation has repeatedly
violated air-quality standards, environmental-protection laws and
feedlot-operating permits.
"Neighbors shouldn't be driven from their homes because a feedlot
fails to comply with basic regulations," Swanson said.
State health officials advised neighbors of the dairy on June 8 to
leave their homes if possible after residents measured levels of
foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide at more than 200 times higher than
state air-quality standards allow.
More...
June 11, 2008 -
Smell drives residents from homes near dairy
- Ryan Schuster Grand
Forks Herald
Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Jeff Brouse and his family have been sleeping on the floor of his
parents’ living room since leaving their home Thursday.
Brouse, his wife and two children ages 3 and 5, are among several
area residents who say they have been driven from their homes by
fear of health effects caused by hazardous fumes omitted by nearby
Excel Dairy north of Thief River Falls. The Minnesota Department of
Health has recommended that some living near the dairy leave if they
can.
Some residents have joined in a planned class-action lawsuit against
the dairy. Marshall County also has filed a public nuisance charge
against the dairy, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is
considering action. The dairy’s operators say they are working to
lessen the smell.
“You can’t even describe it,” Brouse said of the smell. “It takes
your breath away it’s so noxious. It’s not a manure smell. It’s not
a farm smell. It’s a hydrogen sulfide-ammonia gas smell.”
Neighbors say they have taken hand-held air measurements in the last
week that show levels of hydrogen sulfide more than 200 times higher
than what state air quality standards allow. About 40 residents live
within a mile of the 1,500-cow dairy near U.S. Highway 59.
Mona Loe and her husband, Paul, whose house is about 300 yards from
the dairy’s lagoon, left their home Sunday night after getting a
call from the Minnesota Department of Health recommending they
evacuate.
More...
June 11, 2008:
Sweet relief? Thief River Falls dairy says it's reduced its odors
Tom Meersman - Star Tribune
One neighbor who left his
home last week disputes those claims. Jeff Brouse said he returns to
his house to check on things and retrieve clothes, and measured
hydrogen sulfide on Monday and Tuesday evenings at 15 to 60 times
higher than state standards allow.
Brouse said that four to six families within a mile of the dairy
have left their homes to stay with families or friends, and one or
two others are staying in a motel.
On Sunday, Minnesota health officials advised people living near the
Excel Dairy dairy just north of Thief River Falls to leave their
homes if possible. The recommendation came after local residents
said they measured hydrogen sulfide gas near homes that were more
than 200 times higher than state rules allow.
The rotten-egg smell of the hydrogen sulfide is a nuisance at low
levels, but at high concentrations can cause dizziness, memory loss,
respiratory irritation and other serious health problems.
Opponents of proposed 'megadairy' in northwest Illinois promise to
fight its construction -
Some Jo Daviess County residents worry thousands of cows will be an
environmental and health threat
By Jeff Long | Tribune reporter
10:30 PM CDT, June 12, 2008
The state permit was approved
after months of heated debate and despite an advisory against the
project by the Jo Daviess County Board.
Supporters see the project as an economic boon, with the potential
to revive a sagging part of the state's agricultural economy. The
number of dairy cows has dwindled over the last decade in a state
where herds average just 80 head.
But opponents say that does not justify the potentially harsh impact
the big dairy could have on neighbors' quality of life or the
quality of their drinking water.
"Public health trumps all other laws," said Matthew Alschuler,
spokesman for the opposition group Helping Others Maintain
Environmental Standards, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed
in Jo Daviess Circuit Court against Bos and the state Department of
Agriculture.
More than 700 people have signed the group's petition against the
project, Alschuler said. About 100 have agreed to put their names on
the lawsuit as plaintiffs
June 13, 2008
A Noxious Cloud Over Proposed "Mega Dairy"
The Tribune reports today about a battle starting to heat up between
residents of Jo Daviess County in Northwest Illinois and a
California dairy farmer who just received approval from the state
Department of Agriculture to build a "megadairy."
A. J. Bos, who seems to specialize in these ginormous dairy farms,
received approval to build a farm housing 4,400 head of milking
cattle on 1,450 acres of land in Nora, Illinois. If you think that's
ridiculous, you should see what he was asking. Residents in Nora,
near Galena, raised concerns about the environmental impact of the
dairy farm. Bos plans to dig three manure ponds totaling 30 acres on
the site. An engineer for Bos had an answer for those concerns,
stating that they plan on installing a "methane digester" which can
control the odor of that much cattle. The methane produced by the
cattle will also be used to power generators on the farm.
Still, the environmental impact of such a huge farm goes beyond the
smell. Residents have rightful concerns about how their drinking
water can be affected, not to mention the additional carbon
footprint from hauling feed and product to and from the farm.
May 22, 2008
IDOA weighs request for 10,000-cow dairy, amid worries over water
contamination by Lauren Williamson-Medill Reports-Chicago
In February, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn wrote a letter to Marvin Schultz,
chairman of the Jo Daviess County Board, urging the board to reject
the Bos dairy plan.
“The proposed ‘mega-dairy,’ and the animal waste lagoon that would
be created by a facility of this size, would endanger area
groundwater and streams,” he wrote. “These wastes, if recycled
responsibly as agricultural fertilizer, would cover a massive
acreage of farmland; if concentrated over a smaller area, the
over-application would result in serious environmental hazards.”
In January, the County Board voted to reject the dairy, but the
Illinois Department of Agriculture used that vote only as a
non-binding recommendation, said Warren Goetsch, bureau chief of
environmental programs at the IDOA.
“Concentrated animal waste and associated possible contaminants from
IFAP systems pose a substantial environmental problem for air
quality, surface and subsurface water quality, and the health of
workers, neighboring residents, and the general public,” said the
Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, in a study
released in April.
The amount of manure spread from CAFOs often exceeds the ground’s
ability to absorb the nutrients in it, the report said. More than 30
percent of the nitrogen and phosphorous that ends up in fresh-water
sources is a result of animal farming.
May 16, 2008
Fayette County manure spill among many recent incidents: The
Gazette
A severed manure hose line allowed manure to
enter the North Branch Volga River, causing a fish kill Thursday,
about two miles northwest of Randalia in Fayette County. The spill
is one of many manure and farm chemical spills the Iowa Department
of Natural Resources has investigated since fields have dried out
enough to plant, said Mike Wade, an environmental specialist in the
Manchester DNR field office.
May 30, 2008
Dairy shut down over manure spills
The Associated Press
HUNTINGTON, Ind. — A dairy farm with a history
of manure releases that threatened a nearby reservoir will be sold
to an Ohio-based company as part of an order barring the farm’s
current owner from operating livestock farms in Indiana through
2048. The agreement resolves several legal proceedings that had been
pending against DeGroot Dairy and its owner, Johannes DeGroot,
because of several manure discharges that had spilled into
tributaries of northeastern Indiana’s Salamonie Reservoir. In the
past decade, Vreba-Hoff has helped nearly 50 Dutch families set up
dairy farms in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. But the company has had
regulatory skirmishes in other states because of an overpowering
stench and pollution from its concentrated animal feeding
operations. Those farms generally hold thousands of cows and produce
hundreds of thousands of gallons of manure each day.
Toxic fumes, blisters & brain damage : The cost of doing business?
By: Rebecca Lerner - An investigative report - Ithaca Journal
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Karen Strecker is bracing. She’s about to turn on the faucet, and
there’s a chance liquid manure is going to stream from the spout.
“I’ve been taking a bath and actually had cow shit pour into the
tub,’’
Strecker says, matter-of-factly. She uses well water. “It’s nasty.”
Yet the threat of a sewage bath pales in comparison to a more
dangerous problem: Breathing poisonous fumes.
After years living
next to Willet Dairy, the largest industrial farm in the state, Strecker and her neighbors in Genoa are reporting the kinds of
health problems eco-watchdogs lose sleep over, from blistering
eyelids to brain damage.
Manure is known to release gases that, in high concentrations, are
linked to those scary symptoms.
Strecker’s plight takes on national relevance as the EPA prepares to
roll back air-pollution-reporting requirements for industrial animal
farms like Willet in October - even as environmentalists warn that
regulation is already too lax in New York.
More...
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Pew Commission Questions EPA On CAFO Air Release Exemption
Feb 29: A release from
the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP)
indicates that as the U.S. EPA considers lifting a requirement that
industrial farming facilities report their toxic gas emissions,
the Commission's panel of
experts told Congress that the vast amounts of animal waste and
byproducts from such facilities pose significant risks to human
health and the environment, requiring greater -- not lesser --
scrutiny. Members of the PCIFAP said the traditional methods
used to dispose of animal waste are often insufficient to deal with
the amount of waste generated by the high-volume industrial
facilities that today produce food products for much of the nation.
The waste run-off from these
facilities can contaminate groundwater and drinking water supplies,
and the toxic gas emissions can be harmful -- and even fatal -- to
farm workers and surrounding communities.
Conditions and waste management methods common to IFAP facilities
can also produce emissions of harmful gases such as ammonia and
hydrogen sulfide. PCIFAP indicated that, "Many of these compounds
are known to be toxic to the nervous system in sufficient
concentration, and can cause respiratory symptoms, disease and
impaired function. . ."
More...
Know the Truth about Animal Factories
April 12, 2008
North Dakota families are facing a growing health problem caused by
giant animal factories in our state that are exempt from health and
safety regulations and even exempt from state taxes. The giant
animal factories are operating in our state pretending that they are
not an industry, so that they do not have to follow rules for how
they treat animals and how they produce our food. Our legislators
have allowed them to hide what they are doing as the waste from
their mega animal factories poison our land and water and endanger
our health. We need a law to tell the truth and to treat these
factories like an industry, to make them pay their fair share of
taxes, to secure the public's right to know what they are doing, and
to protect our land and health from irresponsible dumping of animal
waste.
More...
Ramsey County livestock zoning fight goes to high court
By MARVIN BAKER, Staff Writer - March 9, 2008
mbaker@minotdailynews.com
DEVILS LAKE — A legal battle over livestock zoning in Ramsey
County is headed to North Dakota’s highest court.
According to Belford, the Ramsey County Planning and Zoning
Commission isn’t against CAFOs, but it wanted specific
guidelines written into law as a safeguard to county residents
and to Devils Lake tourism.
“We wanted regulations put in place to save the taxpayers in
case of disaster,” Belford said. “We were really after this
going to a study committee.”
Gary Larson, a Towner County producer who lives near a CAFO
recently approved for the Wolford area, said he is worried about
property values decreasing. Larson said he is going to have his
property appraised now and after the 7,500-hog facility is in
operation near Wolford.
“My property may be lowered in value and I’ll take the hit,”
Larson said of Pierce County after its commission granted a
permit to set up the CAFO. “They’re taking life, liberty and
property and I don’t think they have that authority.”
Larson is also concerned with health issues that may arise and
said his property should be protected by the government instead
of being placed in jeopardy.
“Factory farms are not farming and should be treated legally
like the industrial polluters they really are,” Larson said.
“The (Dec. 28) ruling says loud and clear that North Dakotans
have the right to defend their communities against the negative
economic and environmental impacts of factory farming.”
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Socially Irresponsible Corporate Ownership
The True Costs
Industrially produced food appears to be inexpensive, but
the
pricetag doesn’t reflect the actual costs that we taxpayers
bear. Factory farms pollute communities and adversely affect
public health, thereby increasing medical costs for those
living near such farms—costs that are often shouldered by
public budgets.iv Taxpayers fund government subsidies,
which go primarily to large industrial farms. Jobs are lost and
wages driven down, as corporate consolidation bankrupts
small businesses and factory farms pay unethically low
wages for dangerous, undesirable work.
Because factory farms are considered “agricultural” instead
of “industrial,” they are not subject to the regulation that their
scale of production (and level of pollution) warrants.v
Because they employ powerful lobbyists that can sway the
government agencies responsible for monitoring agricultural
practices, industrial farms are left free to pollute, to hire
undocumented workers (and pay them next to nothing), and
to locate their businesses without regard to the impact that
has on surrounding communities.
More...
Big ag's big stink
Factory farms are fouling the country's waterways with millions of
tons of animal waste. And the EPA's proposed regulations may not
solve the problem.
By Amanda Griscom Little
The Bush administration wants to
let factory farms determine whether the animal excreta that ooze
from their facilities into waterways should be regulated, say
environmentalists, who argue that the plan, well, stinks.
Agriculture has long been a top source of water pollution in the
United States, but in the past two decades the problem has grown
dramatically with the proliferation of large-scale pork, poultry,
beef and dairy facilities, known as concentrated animal feeding
operations (CAFOs). From 2002 to 2005, the CAFO industry in the
United States expanded by about 22 percent -- with substantially
more animals per facility, and ever larger piles of their droppings.
Today these facilities are responsible for some 500 million tons of
animal manure a year -- three times the waste that humans in this
country produce, activists say. According to a 1998 report from the
Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency,
CAFO muck has fouled roughly
35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and groundwater in 17 states.
More recent data show that 29 states have reported water
contamination from these feedlots.
Take the example of Illinois, she says, a major farm state where
nearly 85 percent of the total public lake acreage is contaminated.
"There are at least 500 large CAFOs in the state; only about 40 have
permits, and only about a fifth of them have even been inspected,"
Merkel says. The state EPA has an inventory of only 30 percent of
the CAFOs operating in Illinois. "They don't even know where the
vast majority are," Merkel says.
Says Shepherdson, "You'd be
hard-pressed to find any other industry that is as loosely regulated
as this one." She says it's no coincidence, noting that the ag
industry is well-known for flexing its political muscle: "All of the
big players have their trade groups out there on their behalf,
lobbying both the EPA and friendly members of Congress to rewrite
the [discharge] rules and exempt them from Clean Water Act
requirements. The EPA is clearly kowtowing to industry and
abdicating its role as protector of public health." More...
---------------------------------
Heavy rain causing concerns for manure lagoons
Thursday, March 20, 2008, 2:43 PM
by Dave Russell
Heavy rain in parts of Indiana is causing some concerns for
livestock producers with manure storage lagoons. Ryan
Westerfeld, Agricultural Liaison for the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management (IDEM) tells Brownfield
producers with a potential problem should contact IDEM
immediately.
“They can call the spill line at 1-888-233-7745,” said
Westerfeld. “They can provide technical assistance to the
producer and explain some emergency actions that can take
place.”
Westerfeld says options available to producers with potential
problems include building a dike around the existing lagoon to
control any overflow, or they could construct emergency storage, but
before doing that the producer must contact IDEM.
More...
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Posted March 6, 2008
Response, weather mitigate manure spill's impact
More than 20,000 gallons pour from Brown Co. farm
By Paul Srubas and Joanne Zipperer
HOLLAND — Quick work by Mike Gerrits prevented a
manure spill at his family's 1,700-cow dairy farm from
becoming a major environmental disaster, a DNR watershed
expert said Wednesday.
More than 20,000 gallons of liquid manure gushed from the
manure lagoons at Country Aire Farms and rushed toward
roadside ditches taking it to a tributary of the East River, said
Craig Webster of the state Department of Natural Resources.
At least part of the spill made it to the East River and
traveled north as far as Wisconsin 96, Webster said. The
flow of melting snow and other tributaries likely would dilute
the manure enough to prevent it from having a harmful effect
on fish or on nutrient levels of the water, he said.
Jason Moeller, the DNR's spills coordinator, called the
discharge a major spill that probably eventually will reach the
Fox River.
More...
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Human Health Hazards - State of Wisconsin
Manure Contamination of Rural Residential Wells
Answers to questions about
residential well contamination from manure and agricultural runoff.
What are the potential health concerns?
When people drink water that is contaminated with manure they can
become very sick. Bacteria and other organisms found in manure can
cause many diseases. Some of the more familiar organisms include
Cryptosporidium, E. coli O157-H7, and Salmonella. Common symptoms
include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, cramps, or fever. When people
bathe or shower in this contaminated water, it is less likely that
they become ill. However, they can still get sick with ear and
respiratory infections, skin rashes, or infections in open wounds.
More...
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Family Farm Defenders: by Jim Goodman
Faming has evolved to this, it's gotten big, it's gotten very
dependent on fossil fuel and if you live next to a CAFO, it has
gotten very smelly. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that
if you work on or live near a CAFO it has gotten potentially
hazardous to your health as well.
Specialized manure holding facilities are required, but due to the
large volumes produced, heavy rain, snow, storage leaks or improper
handling, CAFOs create a very real potential for big manure spills.
Thousands of animals, millions of gallons of manure and you could be
asking for problems. According to the CDC, manure can contain
pollutants such as antibiotics, pathogens, nitrates, pesticides,
hormones, trace elements and heavy metals, none of them good,
especially if they enter the drinking water. In May 2000 an e-coli
contamination of the municipal water system of Walkerton, Ontario,
killed seven and sickened thousands. It was traced to manure runoff.
-------------------------------
Manure Spills Harm Public Health and Cost TaxPayers’ Money
Manure spills are threatening the health of Wisconsin’s citizens and
costing taxpayer’s money by:
--Polluting drinking water used by rural Wisconsin families and
sickening children;
--Destroying our lakes, rivers, and trout streams;
--Undoing public and private financial investments in stream and
lake improvements.
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Manure Spills by CAFOs Can Pollute Drinking Water
In the first few months of 2006,
almost 70 wells in southern Brown County were contaminated with
bacteria. The contamination caused many people to become ill,
suffering from stomach cramps, nausea, diarrhea, and chills. Between
2004 and 2005, approximately 34 rural wells became contaminated in
northeastern Wisconsin from what the DNR believes was liquid or
solid manure. In one case, a CAFO is alleged to have contaminated
six wells in Dodge County, and in another case, a CAFO is alleged to
have contaminated as many as 11 wells. The map to the left was
compiled by the DNR. Manure contamination makes people sick. Manure
contains harmful bacteria that cause serious illness in people that
unknowingly drink contaminated water. In some cases, children have
gotten sick from drinking tap water that
their parents did not know was contaminated with manure. One infant
in Kewaunee County was rushed to a hospital for emergency care.
More...
SUBSIDIZING MANURE LAGOONS
By Jim Hightower - Wed., 2/6/08
Washington is about to pass a humongous farm bill, and
it's full of crop subsidies for large agribusiness operations-while
60 percent of family farmers get not a dime. However, there's
another agribusiness subsidy stuck in this whopper of a bill that
gets little media coverage. Under the guise of environmental
improvement, it provides about $180 million to huge corporate
entities that run industrialized hog and cattle operations. These
factory farms keep the animals confined, feeding and medicating them
in an assembly-line process.
Having hundreds of thousands of animals crammed in these factory
facilities creates a special problem for industrial agriculture:
waste. Hogs and cattle defecate and urinate. A lot. What to do with
this excrement? Agribusiness channels it to lined ponds or "manure
lagoons."
In 2002, as these massive-scale livestock operations were spreading
across rural America, corporate lobbyists quietly changed a farm
conservation program to make these outfits eligible for funding-and
to declare that manure lagoons could be paid for with government
funds as a "conservation measure."
How ironic since these
lagoons are notorious for leaking into groundwater, overflowing into
nearby streams, and fouling the air for everyone downwind. The
factory operations also are squeezing small, sustainable farmers out
of business.
For years our nation's environmental laws were based on the ethical
precept that the polluter must pay. Now that's been perverted to the
unethical notion that we must subsidize the polluter.
Animal Waste, the Environment, and Human Health
Where there are animals, there is animal waste, and as the growth of
industrial farming concentrates thousands of animals on increasingly
fewer farms, it produces massive amounts of animal waste on
relatively small plots of land. When too much waste is produced in
one place, there’s no safe, cost-effective way to either use it
productively or dispose of it. While government regulation and
better waste management practices can make a difference and should
be encouraged for existing farms, the problem of livestock waste
will never end so long as we rely on concentrated industrial farms
to produce our food.
Manure is usually stored for many months, often in giant outdoor
pits known as “lagoons.”vii As it decomposes, the manure emits
harmful gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.viii Meanwhile,
these lagoons often leak or rupture, polluting the surrounding soil
and water systems.
People often believe that animal manure is harmless, but in truth it
can be quite hazardous. Factory livestock facilities pollute the air
and release over 400 separate gasses, mostly due to the large
amounts of manure they produce.xiii The principal gases released are
hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide.xivgasses can
be dangerous air pollutants that threaten both the environment and
human health. Nitric oxides are also released in large quantities
from farms through manure application,xv and are among the leading
causes of acid rain.xvi
The risks of lagoon leakage, overflows, and illegal discharge of
waste also pose a direct threat to the quality of soil and water
systems. A report for the U.S. Geological Survey documented over one
thousand spills and dumps of animal waste in the ten Midwestern
states it surveyed over the course of three years.xv
Mega-Factory Farms and American Well Being: A Story
Daniel Downs -February 28, 2007
Ohio rural citizens are in good company with their fight against
Mega-Dairy Farms. From California to Maine, citizens are rising
against the continued onslaught of factory farms, mega dairies, and
corporate agribusiness. Why all the stink?
The problem with factory farm operations is the ferocious smell
polluting the air. Like the smell of rotten meat, the obnoxious
smell emanating from those farms is symptomatic of a more serious
problem. Just as eating rotten meat will make you ill, so will
breathing the air polluted by factory farms.
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CALL COMMISSIONERS TO PROTEST
THE MEGA-DAIRY!
Foster County Commissioners
Chairperson:
Dwayne Erickson
180 90th Avenue SE
Kensal, ND 58455
Ph #: 701-435-2388
Cell #: 701-653-5202
Vice-Chairperson
James E Carr
6825 2nd Street NE
Carrington, ND 58421
Ph #: 701-652-3316
Cell #: 701-650-1383
Member
LeRoy Hart
7975 3rd Street SE
Carrington, ND 58421
Ph #: 701-285-3310
|
Click here to print out a copy of the petition. |
Near a Large Dairy in ID
~~~
AS-1155
Scott Birchall, Livestock Waste Management Specialist
"One of the most important
decisions when planning any livestock facility is site selection.
The site for the feedlot operation must not only be suitable for
housing, handling and feeding cattle, but also must ensure that
surface and ground waters are protected and that the impact from
odors is minimized. Whether you are planning a new facility or
modifying an existing one, the following checklist may help avoid
costly mistakes....
Odor
Minimizing the impact of odor on neighboring residents is a
combination of:
~Recognizing the prevailing wind direction. In North Dakota, this is
usually from the north west or south east (or north/south in the Red
River Valley).
~Using topography to your advantage. Odor tends to "drain" down
slope in the evening in summer.
~Reduce visual impact. Visual confirmation of dust is more likely to
result in odor complaints. Windbreaks will also help break up odor
plumes and provide stock protection.
~Providing a buffer distance to the neighbors. It is difficult to
specify a particular buffer distance without taking into account the
previous factors. Be aware that odors from some larger facilities
have been detected 4 to 5 miles distant. Anyone planning a facility
within 1 to 2 miles of neighboring dwellings will have to provide
more detailed information on how they plan to minimize odor."
Read More...
(The above web site
-produced by the North
Dakota State University
NDSU Extension Service-
is
extremely informative about the precautions that should be taken
regarding livestock waste management. How does the proposed
MEGA-dairy intend to address these concerns?)
~~~
When the wind blows across the
MEGA-dairy lagoon and toward town, say good-by to outdoor family
gatherings and visits on the front porch.
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