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Winnipeg Free Press
22-05-2025
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
A new threat to Lake Winnipeg — from North Dakota
Opinion Massive dairy concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) being permitted and proposed in North Dakota are a threat to our waterways, including Lake Winnipeg and the groundwater which many people rely upon to drink. More than half of the phosphorus load, the cause of algal blooms in Lake Winnipeg, enters Manitoba's waterways from upstream jurisdictions. Two-thirds of this is from the Red River alone. The International Joint Commission (IJC), under The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, established joint nutrient loading targets in October 2022. The Red River nutrient target recommendation for phosphorus was set at 1,400 tonnes per year. But Manitoba's recent report on nutrient levels through 2023 shows that an average 2,500 tonnes of phosphorus per year is coming from the U.S. through the Red River. That is nearly double the phosphorus loading targets set by the IJC. The Canadian Press Netley Creek and the Red River enter Lake Winnipeg just north of Winnipeg. The Red River and Lake Winnipeg are facing new pollution threats from huge new North Dakota corporate dairy operations. Since the 1930s, North Dakota had one of the most progressive anti-corporate farming laws in the U.S., intended to keep North Dakota lands in the hands of working family farmers. This legislation had been gradually weakened over the years. In 2023, then-governor Douglas Burgum, now Trump's secretary of the interior, encouraged changing the law to allow for corporations to become partners in animal agriculture operations. This has opened the door for corporate investment in North Dakota and, in particular, eastern North Dakota within the Red River Valley, now identified as a prime area of interest for the establishment of CAFOs. Riverview LLP, a large dairy/cattle agribusiness based out of Minnesota, is in the process of expanding into North Dakota with two new CAFOs. The Abercrombie Dairy received permits from North Dakota to start construction of a 12,500-head milking cow operation near Wahpeton in January 2025. The Dakota Resource Council and nearby residents filed an appeal of the state permit in February, citing concerns about water quality, but unfortunately the appeal was dismissed on technical grounds. The Herberg Dairy is another proposed 25,000-head milking operation near Hillsboro, N.D., which is in the initial regulatory/permitting stage. Public comments are being accepted until June 2. No permitting decisions regarding Herberg Dairy have yet been made. The size of these massive dairy operations is concerning. Just two new CAFOs will add 37,500 more cows. To put the size of these operations in perspective, at present Manitoba has around 45,000 milk cows, supporting about 240 farms in the entire province. North Dakota currently has around 8,900 milk cows supporting about 24 dairy farms across the state. These two CAFOs will more than quadruple the number of milking cows in North Dakota, and add nearly as many milking cows in the Red River watershed as there are in all of Manitoba. They will also produce massive amounts of animal excrement, comparable to a city with a population of 1.5 million people. To deal with all this manure, these CAFOs will store the manure and wastewater in lagoons the size of 62 American football fields (52 Canadian football fields). Once a year, they pour this manure slurry on agricultural fields as fertilizer. These dairies are within 1.5 miles from the Red River or one of its tributaries. The Red River valley south of the border floods, just like here. Heavy rains, storms in CAFO rich areas like Iowa and North Carolina have caused serious manure releases into neighboring water bodies. Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. Sound familiar? This is how Manitoba's intensive hog industry manages their waste, and we know where the nutrient hot spots are located within southeastern Manitoba, a.k.a. Hog Alley. What could possibly go wrong? Dr. John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics and author of numerous books on sustainable agriculture, said it best: 'piling up too much stuff in one place, causes problems.' Too much manure on the same parcels of land year after year after year leads to the accumulation of nutrients and other contaminants (such as phosphorus, nitrogen, antibiotics, viruses, bacteria, hormones and heavy metals). In sandy to loamy soils, this waste escapes downward to the aquifer, contaminating the groundwater. In clayey soils — a good part of the Red River valley — the excess contaminants run off during wet periods contaminating waterways and contributing to algal blooms in Lake Winnipeg. These huge dairy farms need to be stopped. Canada should refer the issue of these new CAFOs to the IJC to provide recommendations to resolve this transboundary water issue. Governments need to support regenerative agriculture, and phase out industrial factory farming production systems. Small farms that use straw rather than manure slurry pits are better for people, animals, and the planet. James Beddome is the executive director of the Manitoba Eco-Network and was raised on a mixed livestock family farm in the Little Saskatchewan river valley in western Manitoba. Dr. Madeline Luke is a volunteer with the Dakota Resource Council. She is a retired internal medicine doctor from Valley City, North Dakota. Glen Koroluk is the former executive director of the Manitoba Eco-Network, and former spokesperson for Beyond Factory Farming.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Comment period opens on proposed 25,000-cow dairy's environmental permit
Neal Pulskamp, right, and Cindy Pulkskamp, listen to a presentation on Riverview Dairy in Hillsboro, N.D., on April 3, 2025. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor) Anyone with concerns about handling the manure from 25,000 cows or other issues associated with what could become North Dakota's largest dairy are now able to submit comments to the state. The North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality opened a comment period Friday on the proposed Traill County facility to be operated by Minnesota-based Riverview Dairy. The DEQ comment period runs through June 2 and includes a public hearing May 20 from 5-8 p.m. at the Hillsboro High School gym. Comments can be submitted through the DEQ website at Riverview refers to the 25,000-cow project as Herberg Dairy, named for the township along the Red River and North Dakota Highway 200 southeast of Hillsboro where the dairy is planned. Riverview already has a state environmental permit for its planned 12,500-cow dairy in Abercrombie Township north of Wahpeton in Richland County. The Dakota Resource Council is challenging that permit in court. Marty Haroldson, permits program manager of the Division of Water Quality within the Department of Environmental Quality, and other staff members from the agency were in Hillsboro earlier this month as Riverview held an open house to answer questions from the public. Haroldson said the plan for the Herberg Dairy is similar to Abercrombie, just on a larger scale. 'So as far as the technology, that's all the same, it's just scaled up,' Haroldson said. 'Manure storage ponds are going to have a larger footprint, the barns are going to be a little bit bigger, a few more people working there.' Haroldson said even after an environmental permit is issued, some aspects of the plan, such as manure management, can change, such as which farmers want to use Riverview's manure as fertilizer or on which fields. The plan 'can be a living document,' Haroldson said, but Riverview would need to document the changes. Two large questions are not addressed in the environmental plans for the dairy: Where will the water come from? Where will the milk go? Large dairy farms like the ones proposed by Minnesota-based Riverview Dairy require huge quantities of water — 20 to 30 gallons of water per cow per day. That would equal at least 700,000 gallons of water per day for the Traill County site and 350,000 gallons per day for the Richland County site. The huge water need coupled with manure output from such a large dairy has some residents in Richland County concerned about the effect on aquifers and the water supply for residents. Huge dairy farms planned for eastern North Dakota Brady Janzen, who works on site development for Riverview Dairy, said during a recent open house on the Traill County project that the company's dairies use a combination of collected water, such as gathering rain water that runs off barn roofs, surface water and ground water. Riverview has a permit request under review with the North Dakota Department of Water Resources for the Richland County site northwest of Wahpeton for using surface water pulled from the Red River. A comment period has already been held on that permit. Another comment period will open when the department announces its intent to approve or deny the permit. Riverview is working with the East Central Rural Water District that serves Traill and Grand Forks counties for the site southeast of Hillsboro. Riverview has not yet applied for a water permit for that site. The two dairies will use a lot of water and produce a lot of milk that would need to be processed. The Traill dairy would fill 22 tanker loads of milk – more than 170,000 gallons per day. The Richland site would produce about half that. 'We won't begin building until we have a processor who has a need for that milk,' Janzen said. Riverview already has several large dairies in western Minnesota but does not own its own creamery. Janzen said Riverview has 'kicked the tires' on building a processing plant. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Dairy farmers in the Bismarck-Mandan area, the traditional heart of North Dakota's dairy industry, have been hurt by the closure of a creamery close to home. A bill in the North Dakota Legislature aims to provide some financial incentives for dairy processing. Amber Wood of the North Dakota Livestock Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes animal agriculture, is confident that the large dairies will mean more processing in the area. 'With dairy, it's not the chicken or the egg, it's the chicken and the egg,' Wood said. 'You have to have processing to get cows and cows to get processing.' While Wood is optimistic about dairy in the Red River Valley, others have concerns. The same evening as Riverview's Hillsboro open house, the Dakota Resource Council hosted a meeting in Fargo to raise awareness of the Abercrombie Dairy, which would be near the Red River, the drinking water source for Fargo residents. 'So why should you care? Because you're 35 miles away,' said Madeline Luke, a volunteer with Dakota Resource Council whose main interest is in water protection, told the group. Luke said by the time the public became aware of the Abercrombie Dairy, there was little time to review the permit application within the comment period. She cited concerns such as the number of fields where the manure will be applied that have drainage tile installed. Luke was already reviewing the Herberg application on Friday. Erik Olson has become a spokesperson for Abercrombie-area residents opposed to the dairy and addressed the Fargo meeting. The town of Abercrombie is less than four miles from the proposed dairy. 'Riverview was well into the process of planning and developing for years before the public was made aware,' Olson said. 'We have minimal time to learn and educate ourselves on the effects that this megadairy would be having. 'To say that we were shocked is an understatement.' The Dakota Resource Council has argued that one reason to throw out the permit is that there was no public hearing. Riverview has filed a motion to dismiss the Dakota Resource Council lawsuit. A ruling on that motion is pending with a Burleigh County court. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
