By Sara Strong
Issues of land management were up for discussion at Tuesday’s Rock County Board of Commissioners meeting.
Land Management Director Eric Hartman told the board Rock County could be designated "livestock friendly."
Hartman said the county could sell itself as livestock friendly to help draw population and livestock business to Rock County.
Rock County’s current setbacks are generally twice as strict as the livestock friendly designation would allow. Commissioners will have to decide if it’s something they want to pursue, given the amount of time and energy already spent making setback ordinances.
The board referred the issue back to the Planning and Zoning Board for research and review.
In-house engineer
The Rock County Board passed a resolution of support for the Southwest Joint Powers Organization to seek a grant for an engineering intern to work out of the Rock County office.
The local cost would be mostly "in kind" costs of about $34,000 that would come from providing a work area, telephone and vehicle for the engineer.
The two-year grant would allow most of the engineer’s time to be dedicated to working with feedlot owners in Rock County. This would be especially helpful to those who have to make changes based on the Level III inventories, which were ordered by the District Attorney.
County costs of the inventories themselves will be partially covered by the settlement from a plea agreement with David Logan of Global Ventures, a hog operation that was involved in bribery crimes. The Level III inventories are being done to ensure no environmental harm was done during the tenure of former Land Management director John Burgers, who was also implicated in the Global Ventures scandal.
BWSR received $130,000 to spend on inspections and Rock County received $30,000.
Rock County has a better chance at getting the engineer grant if it goes through the Joint Powers Organization.
If the grant is approved, the county could designate how it wants the engineer to spend time, whether on clean-ups needed because of recent inspections or for expansion projects.
A big part of local producers’ fears of inspections has been based on the cost of engineers that would be required to sign off on most feedlot designs.
The Joint Powers Organization has an engineer that could back up what the intern engineer does, as required until the intern obtains a full license.
Task force
The Rock County Feedlot Task Force will meet Dec. 5. Part of the session will be about the feedlot evaluation process.
The 16-member Task Force was formed to work through the feedlot inspection process in the county. The group meets periodically to discuss rule interpretations in gray areas of environmental code and will try to disseminate public information.