15-05-2025
CT town blocks dairy farm plan for manure lagoon. Cow odor from nearby community raised as issue.
The manure lagoon is a no-go for now.
A crowd of Somers residents was pleased Tuesday night when zoning officials blocked Oakridge Dairy's plan to truck tons of cow manure to a nearly 3-acre man-made lagoon on Watchaug Road.
But the dispute isn't over, since the decision didn't address whether large manure pits are allowed in town. The unanimous vote said Oakridge can't simply proceed, but instead would have to through the formal review process of applying for a zoning permit.
Scores of residents showed up at the zoning board of appeals hearing, with several arguing why they think the Ellington-based Oakridge shouldn't be allowed to dig an open pit for storing millions of gallons of cow manure and water.
A zoning regulation that permits 'farm ponds' shouldn't apply to this case, they argued.
'A pond that contains water isn't the same as a pond that contains diluted manure,' Ann Levesque said. 'Somers doesn't want to be another Smellington.'
Smellington is a word used to deride another town in the state, Ellington, which has many cows.
Attorney and long-time resident John Parks, who helped write Somers' most recent zoning rules, agreed.
'They're exporting waste from Ellington to Somers under the guise of fertilizer,' he said, drawing applause.
The cows at Oakridge, the state's largest dairy, are generating more waste than the company can handle at its Ellington property, he contended. But that shouldn't be Somers' problem, he argued, saying 'I think Ellington allowed it, Ellington embraced it, Ellington should keep it.'
The hearing wasn't directly about whether Somers should allow manure lagoons, appeals board members emphasized. Instead, the issue was whether the zoning enforcement officer should have allowed the company to proceed without going through the permitting process. Town Attorney Carl Landolina advised her to do that, saying the pit would qualify as agriculture — which is far less regulated that commercial or industrial operations.
But neighbor Owen Jarmoc filed an appeal; his attorney, Dwight Merriam, argued Tuesday night that the decision to let the project advance was made without enough information. A rule allowing for a farm pond was intended to help very small operations with one or two horses, not a high-volume business that could be sending 1,400 tractor trailerloads of manure a year to its Watchaug Road land, he said.
'The zoning commission never intended a 2.91-acre, 7.4 million-gallon open manure storage (pit)' as an assumed right in town, he said.
Dorian Reiser, Oakridge's attorney, argued that the only question for the board to decide was whether the operation would be agriculture.
'We're not getting into how this would be constructed, how it will be managed,' she said.
She said the pond is designed for irrigation, not storage.
'Oakridge has been farming this property for years,' Reiser told the board. 'I don't care if this is a farm pond. This is an agricultural use. '
Jill Conklin of School Street said driving by Oakridge's Ellington facility is unpleasant.
'I drive by Oakridge every day. A lot of times we close our windows when we get to that area, it does smell at certain times of the year,' she said.
The trailers loaded with diluted manure are open on top, and there's sloshing at stop signs and red lights that creates large spills on streets, she said.
'If you drive through this stuff, get it up in your wheel wells and park in your garage, your whole house is going to stink,' she said.
