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Three months of scorching temperatures for the town in western Wisconsin intensified the smell of manure from the 4.5-million-gallon uncovered manure pit on Halderson’s farm, which has about 575 cows and abuts city limits.
Most residents agree Halderson has been a good neighbor; all agree that he needs a better way to manage the smell.
“This is a farming community, and for the most part people understand that,” said Terry Collins, the mayor of Galesville. “But this past summer things have gotten quite a bit worse.”
In order to fix the problem by covering the pit, Halderson says he needs to expand.
But when he applied for a county permit to expand his feedlot to more than 1,000 units — the equivalent of 714 dairy cows — some residents rallied against him.
“I don’t want to see him encroach on our property any more,” said Galesville resident Sue Hummel, who lives with her husband a half-mile from the farm. “All was well and good when we purchased our house 11 years ago. Then he increased the size of his herd, and the past summer we couldn’t sit outside.”
Halderson said any fix requires an investment, and he makes a living by selling milk. Finding money for an investment means he needs more cows.
Residents point out that if Halderson receives the new permit, there’s no guarantee against him doubling the size of his operation.
Halderson says he’s misunderstood, that the odor is the only conflict — increasing his herd is merely a byproduct of quelling the smell, and he plans to only expand enough to fund a solution.
The Trempealeau County joint committee of Land Conservation and Zoning will meet Dec. 27 to consider granting Halderson the permit to expand. If granted, Halderson’s would become the fourth 1,000-plus animal unit farm in the county.
If the board votes to deny the permit, Halderson may have recourse: A Wisconsin law that will likely take effect next year would effectively strip control over livestock siting and odor management from local governments. The Wisconsin department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection regulation, ATCP 51, would institute a standardized set of regulations. Halderson’s expansion would pass currently proposed ATCP regulations.
With the desire of city dwellers to move out to the country, farms aren’t miles away from houses any longer, and as operations grow, so does the tension between new residents and farmers looking to expand on land adjacent to sprawl.
Sprawl, coupled with farm growth and new residents’ lack of knowledge of modern farming practices, can create a host of problems, said Pete Nowak, a rural sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“They’re called the ‘working lands’ of America,’” he said. “Yet I think a lot of people buy lots in the country because they have an idyllic, pastoral image, a setting to a lifestyle. (Farmers and non-farmers) have totally different expectations of what to expect from these lands.”
Paul Halderson, 50, began his dairy operation in 1984 with 75 cows, taking over rented land his parents had farmed for years. He later purchased the land and after a few years began to expand his herd. Industry trends have driven the expansions, he said, which include technology that allows farmers to manage and milk more cows with less labor.
“You’re either growing or you’re going out of business,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but the world runs on margins, from grocery stores to hardware stores to dairy farms.”
The number of dairy farms in Wisconsin has dropped sharply in recent years, and many current operations, such as Halderson’s, continue to grow.
Even as he attempts to expand, Halderson resists the “big ag” designation.
“I consider myself a family farm that’s grown as my family has grown,” he said.
In 1998, Halderson applied for and received a permit to expand his feedlot to 650 animal units, and built a 4.5 million gallon manure pit adjacent to his barn. He received a second permit in 2001 to expand to 999 units. Halderson’s current 575-cow herd is about 800 animal units.
Some residents, including Hummel, say the odor problems began as early as 2002. She said it “was bad almost every night” after Halderson received his second permit.
Others say the problems began this year. “I received more complaints about the smell last summer than the last six years combined,” said David Appleyard, executive director of Trempealeau County’s Land Conservation office, which oversees county farm operations.
There’s no single attributable source to the rise in smell; most believe it was the unseasonably hot weather.
When residents asked for odor control this fall, Halderson explored his options. The first was building a larger, covered manure storage facility.
It would be cheaper to build a new pit, rather than fit a cover on the old one, he said; a 10 million gallon covered manure pit would cost about $340,000.
He also considered a manure digester, which burns methane and converts it into electricity. A large digester would cost $600,000 to $1 million and would generate power that Halderson could sell to a utility.
Halderson said there is not room for a digester on his current manure pit, and he needs to expand his herd to fund the fix.
Halderson, whose farm is about 800 feet from his nearest neighbor, already received a variance to the required 1,320-foot setback from a residential structure.
The Trempealeau County Board of Adjustment approved the variance 3-2, after a hearing at which several residents spoke against it. Board member Nancy Horton said she voted against the variance because of the farm’s proximity to Galesville.
“(Halderson) has been a good neighbor to a lot of people and he’s community-oriented. It’s just a bad situation,” she said.
Ernie Boehm, who lives a mile from Halderson’s farm, spoke against the variance. Boehm used to milk cows and said in an interview that he has no issues with Halderson’s farm and isn’t usually bothered by the smell, but last summer was an exception.
“(The Haldersons) are not bad people,” he said. “They’re great neighbors. It’s very hard to do that, to go against your neighbors.”
Rollie Thompson, who serves on the town of Gale board, which first approved the variance, spoke in favor of Halderson at the meeting.
“It’ll take care of 60 percent of the smell, and anything is an improvement,” said Thompson, who also serves on the Trempealeau County Zoning Committee.
Dirty water
Arctic View Dairy sits atop a steep hill above Lake Marinuka, a mill pond built in the late 1800s that serves as a settling basin for nearby farms.
After a utility company dug a trench for underground power lines up the hill in 2000, water began to accumulate in the yard of Galesville resident Catherine Erickson, whose house sits at the bottom of the hill. Last year, Erickson discovered her well was polluted.
An independent lab analysis showed signs of coliforms, naturally occurring bacteria that come from a variety of sources, including feces. Erickson’s children blame Halderson’s farm, though the lab can’t conclusively link the coliforms to animal waste.
“It’s not our intention to put (Halderson) out of business,” said Mike Erickson, one of Catherine’s sons and a vocal opponent of Halderson’s plan. “We just wanted the well fixed. That’s her home. And she sits there in a basement filled with stinking water.”
Other wells in the area have not been tested, and residents have not reported problems. Halderson admits he had a runoff problem but says it didn’t include manure.
Appleyard, of the Land Conservation office, agrees. “In my mind, runoff isn’t an issue,” he said. “His impact on Lake Marinuka is miniscule, compared to the other agricultural operations going on in the watershed over the last 140 years.”
Halderson donated two acres of his land to the city last summer for a filter wall, which collects runoff and directs it along his property line. The Land Conservation and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources have classified his farm as a “zero-discharge facility,” meaning all runoff is collected and filtered within the property, and found it to be in compliance with state regulations.
Working together
Halderson isn’t in violation of any soil, water or odor regulations, the main reasons his permit would be denied. When the board votes on Halderson’s expanded feedlot request, it can attach restrictions to the permit, such as requiring stricter odor standards.
Regardless of how the board votes, the best solution is education and increased communication between farmers and residents, Nowak said.
“Suburban development is one of the major land-use trends in the upper Midwest that will continue for years to come,” he said. “People who move out in the rural landscape have to realize that manure is an integral part of the working lands of Wisconsin.”
Galesville Mayor Terry Collins agreed.
“The city is here and Paul’s here and we’re both going to stay,” Collins said. “It’s not a simple thing, but I’m hoping we can all start working together on how to remedy this problem.”
New rules will limit local control over feedlots
By Brian Voerding | Lee Newspapers
Local controversies like the one brewing over the proposed expansion of a dairy farm outside Galesville, Wis., may soon be as passé as a 24-cow dairy.
New regulations from the state’s department of Agriculture, Trade and Commerce Protection would effectively strip local governments of control over feedlot expansions, possibly as early as January 2006.
In 2004, Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law new livestock siting legislation, which was suspended until a set of governing standards, known as ATCP 51, are adopted by the agriculture committee. The standards are expected to be approved early next year.
ATCP 51 is a single set of regulations for livestock siting and odor standards for feedlot operations larger than 500 animal units or expanding by more than 20 percent.
Under the rule, local governments would have to approve all completed feedlot applications unless “clear and convincing” evidence shows standards aren’t met. Governments could add restrictions to permits, but would have to provide scientific reasoning and prove that every decision is necessary to protect public health and safety.
Current proposals include:
---The 1,320-foot buffer between farms with more than 1,000 animal units and residences would be reduced to 200 feet.
---Every county would have at least one agriculture zone that does not restrict the size of livestock operations.
---Facilities expanding by less than 20 percent would not require approval. After a facility expands once, future expansions are automatically approved, regardless of size.
Supporters tout ATCP 51 and the siting legislation as a science-based, objective model. Dave Jelinski, ATCP 51 project manager with the department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, called it “cutting-edge regulation,” which would remove the “patchwork of regulations set by different local governments.”
The law’s advocates also say it will avoid misinformed, biased decisions by local governments.
“It will provide statewide predictability for farmers as to what the guidelines are for a major expansion,” said Department of Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen in prepared statements made earlier this fall. “It will provide certainty, and a shield for farmers from frivolous opposition.”
Others say it’s a poor, one-size-fits-all model.
“It will make all farmers jump through hoops in order to get to a few that are causing the problems,” said Pete Nowak, a professor of rural sociology at University of Wisconsin at Madison. “(The Department of Agriculture) doesn’t have the staff or capability to discriminate that a farm in the urban setting should be measured differently than one in the hinterlands.”
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau, the Dairy Business Association and others have opposed the law and are working with the state Agriculture Committee on the revisions.
Reporter Brian Voerding can be reached at (507)-453-3514 or brian.voerding@winonadailynews.com.
