Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com
Published - Thursday, May 19, 2005
Farmer, neighbors clash over hog farm
LEWISTON, Minn. — Some Lewiston area residents are mustering opposition to a hog farmer's plans to build a 2,100-hog feedlot northwest of the central Winona County town.
The Winona County Planning Commission is scheduled to vote tonight on whether to grant Chris Sauer of Sauer Family Farms a permit to raise up to 2,100 hogs in a barn he has proposed to build in the northwest corner of Utica Township.
Neighbors worry that the facility — which could hold almost 1 million gallons of manure in a concrete pond under the barn — would be a threat to groundwater, air quality and property values. Sauer says rising property values, driven in part by non-farmers moving into the country, are part of the reason he needs to make his farm more efficient by consolidating.
Sauer, 38, who began the farm in the early 1990s with his brother Jason, 32, says the new barn will streamline their operations, give them more manure to spread on their 1,700 acres of row crops and make the farm economically viable should his children want to take it over in 20 years.
"We're not getting any bigger," said Sauer, who currently raises about 900 hogs for market each month in three barns. "We're only trying to be more efficient."
Sauer has about 700 sows on his Rupprechts Valley Road farm. Each month, he said, he moves 800 to 1,000 pigs to two nearby barns, where other farmers raise them to market size. The proposed barn would eliminate one move, lowering the cost of production — and giving Sauer more manure, which he says would allow him to significantly reduce his reliance on chemical fertilizers for the corn and soybeans that account for much of the farm's revenue.
"We're not anti-farm," said Jim Gurley, who lives about a mile west of the proposed barn site and has helped organize neighbors to oppose it. "We do have a concern about factory farms."
Gurley sees the feedlot as a potential threat to groundwater, which is particularly susceptible to contamination through the area's sensitive karst geography, as well as to air quality.
"When we moved out into the country, we knew there were smells, and we accept that," Gurley said. "This type of odor goes way beyond normal barnyard smells. This is a noxious odor one can't escape."
Sauer, who lives with his wife, Heather, and their two children about 100 feet from his 16,000-square-foot feedlot, says his family keeps the windows open most of the summer.
"There about six days in the summer when it's muggy and it smells like a hog farm," Sauer said.
Sauer says he is as concerned about groundwater as his neighbors, in part because his livestock depend on it.
"We consider ourselves environmentalists," he said. "We drink the same water. Water is a make or break deal for farmers."
Although Sauer has hired engineers to test the site's soil and topography for groundwater hazards such as sinkholes and engineering plans appear to meet Minnesota Pollution Control Agency rules, Gurley is not so sure the project is safe.
"We're not convinced. We're not convinced that it's environmentally sound," Gurley said.
Others, including Doug Nopar, a member of the Land Stewardship Project, warns that the proposed site is on top of the watershed for Garvin Brook, a designated trout stream.
The sum of the problem is a threat to neighbors' property values, Gurley says.
Dale Sommers, who lives across the road from the proposed barn site, worries that even if studies that say feedlots smell less than 30 hours a month are true, the presence of such a building would make it nearly impossible to sell his house.
"It doesn't take too many factors for a buyer to look someplace else," Sommers said.
"We moved out to the country because we enjoy the fresh air and the quality of life," Gurley said. "A lot of us have worked hard and invested in our property. Even if everything Chris Sauer says is correct, it would still lower our property value. It's perception."
Although organizations like Minnesota's Land Stewardship Project advocate more environmentally friendly methods of hog farming, the trend is toward bigger operations. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of Minnesota hog farms shrank by 41 percent, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. During that time, the number with fewer than 2,000 head decreased by more than 50 percent, while those with more than 2,000 grew by 46 percent.
Daryl Schwantz, who runs a 40-cow dairy farm east of the proposed Sauer site, says he is reserving judgment until he hears more about the plans, but he disputes the notion that farmers must expand to survive.
"At whose expense?" Schwantz asks. "Every life is important. Every job is important."
Reporter Chris Hubbuch can be reached at (507) 453-3511 or chubbuch@winonadailynews.com.
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