By Sara Strong
The Rock County Board of Commissioners learned Tuesday that a strong percentage of local feedlots are environmentally safe.
Of the Rock County feedlots inspected so far, nearly 75 percent have no environmental concerns.
Commissioner Richard Bakken said he thought the Level III inventory process has been fair so far. Level III is the most in-depth of inspections conducted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Bakken said he was pleased that the Board of Water and Soil Resources was completing the inspections on behalf of the MPCA, which has had public relations problems with local producers.
As part of a plea agreement in U.S. District Court, Global Ventures owner David Logan paid $160,000 to cover the inspections. About $130,000 went to BWSR for actually conducting inspections. Global Ventures, Pipestone, was involved in fraud and bribery crimes that were connected to former Rock County Land Management Director.
To remove suspicion of inappropriate handling of Rock County’s feedlot program, all livestock facilities are going through the Level III inventory.
Personnel costs to the county have been $19,263.97 as of the first week of January. This includes site visits, data entry, technical assistance, administration, updating and reviewing files, scheduling and communication and training.
Including other expenses, the county’s responsibility in the Level III costs comes to $23,348.37 so far.
Data entry has been the most time consuming and costly part of the project for the county, but that was first forecast in original estimates.
Rock County has 618 registered feedlots and as of the first week in January, 118 were visited.
Of the sites visited, 88 have no environmental concerns; 25 have runoff concerns; four were unpermitted basins, and three were abandoned sites.
Some of the feedlots were permitted under a different set of rules than ones that are in place now, so producers weren’t purposefully operating outside of regulations in most cases.
The sites that require changes will have a grace period to implement them, because the exact changes aren’t clearly defined.
The MPCA is in the middle of the long process of rewriting some feedlot rules, so the county won’t start the clock on those deadlines until the new rules are finalized.
Land Management Director Eric Hartman said, "We’re just going to have to wait. … There’s more questions than answers at this time."
While waiting for the rules, the LMO isn’t sure how much time and money it’ll end up spending on updating and reviewing files and technical assistance after the rules are finalized.
Producers may have to come up with engineering fees on their own if the inspections mean changes on their feedlots. Funding options for producers are limited mostly to special low-interest loans to cover site upgrades.
The county had applied for an engineering salary grant that would cover an intern’s work under a licensed engineer. That grant may not cover enough costs for the county, so the board will revisit the topic at a future meeting.
Ethanol concerns
Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposed cuts to ethanol last week got lots of attention, including some from Rock County people who traveled to the capital to voice objections.
The Rock County Board of Commissioners Tuesday discussed whether it, they as board members, should sign a resolution against the cuts.
Commissioner Jane Wildung said she agreed in principal with protesting the ethanol cuts, but wondered if the county should take a stand on this particular cut in a time when so many will suffer because of the state deficit.
Health insurance increases, Family Services cuts and various tax increases will likely meet with opposition from county residents, and the county won’t be able to draft resolutions protesting all of them.
Commissioners said there’s hope that, because of all the attention the proposed ethanol cuts are getting, the subsidies will continue to some extent.
Pawlenty’s budget proposal called for the elimination of $26.8 million to ethanol plants, the biggest line item cut. That would have meant a loss of three-quarters of what the state was set to pay out in subsidies.
Bakken said, "It’s not right to go from making a profit to not, with the stroke of a pen. … This business is significant to the county."
Because Bakken and Commissioner Ken Hoime are investors in Luverne’s Agri-Energy Ethanol Plant, the board is researching conflict of interest guidelines before it brings a resolution to the table for a vote.