Proposed Floyd County hog confinement facility downsizes, won’t need construction permit

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A construction permit application has been withdrawn for a new hog confinement operation that the Floyd County Board of Supervisors recommended against, because the project has been rescaled to a size where a construction permit is not required.

The supervisors voted 2-1 last month to recommend that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources not grant a permit to Lancer LLC to build two deep pit swine finishing buildings along Lancer Avenue between Rudd and Floyd.

A representative of the Iowa DNR said the construction permit application had been withdrawn, and her understanding was that the project was going ahead with just one building, which would put it below the threshold for requiring a state construction permit, but would still require a manure management plan.

Mark Hover, a production manager with Reicks View Farms in Chickasaw County, who also raises hogs for Reicks View and who had said one of this sons would operate the Lancer facility, declined to comment Thursday evening.

“I don’t think I want to talk about that,” he said when contacted by the Press.

Becky Sextant, of Twin Lakes Environmental Services in Rockwell City, who helped fill out the state Master Matrix form and the manure management plan for the project, did not return messages from the Press asking to discuss the project.

About 20 people had appeared at a public hearing held by the county supervisors on Aug. 27, most of them opposed to the original two-building confinement operation plan because of concerns over flooding in the area, and water and air quality issues.

After the hearing had lasted more than a hour, the supervisors voted 2-1 to send a letter to the DNR outlining concerns and recommending against construction permit approval.

The 21-page letter to the DNR, dated Sept. 3 and signed by current Supervisor Chairman Doug Kamm, included 10 photos that had been submitted by neighbors to the proposed project and showed flooded fields, undermined railroad tracks and flooded roads; four more county photos showing area flood damage; a floodplain map and a map showing area tile lines, including a Drainage District 3 main tile line near the proposed confinement facility location; along with copies of three letters the supervisors had received opposing the project.

In the letter, the county outlined its reasons for recommending against the project. They were:

• A concern that 25 points used to help pass the state Master Matrix on the project were for the applicant’s eligibility to qualify for the Family Farm Tax Credit, for which the applicant may not have been eligible because the five-acre site for the project was under the minimum number of acres required to claim the credit.

• The manure management plan cited farmland owned by James Erb of Charles City as areas where manure would be applied, but Erb said he had not signed an agreement for that. Erb rents out the land and the renter had agreed to manure application, but Iowa law requires the land owner to enter into a manure management agreement.

• Concerns over flooding in the area raised by neighbors and by photos of previous area flooding.
“Although the Lancer LLC site is not identified on the FEMA Flood Maps as a high risk zone, per the map provided, portions of the site are in a flood fringe area. This waterway flows directly to the Cedar River,” the letter said.

• “Air and water quality: This area of the county is becoming more saturated with confinement facilities,” the letter said, adding, “With respect to air quality, neighbors expressed a correlation on the impact of human health and odors from the daily facility operations and when manure injection takes place as well as a risk of property values declining.”

The letter pointed out that Charles City and the Upper Cedar Urban-Rural Partnership had been awarded a $1.6 million grant through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, to increase adoption of agricultural conservation practices to provide improvements in soil health, water quality and to help mitigate excessive stream discharges.

With that effort in mind, “it seems counter-productive to allow permitting of the Lancer LLC application,” the letter said.

The letter concluded, “we continue to raise concerns of the failing master matrix.”

Iowa law requires a building permit for confinement operations that have more than 1,000 “animal units.”

The law assigns a number based on the size of animals. For example, beef cattle are each one animal unit, chickens weighing more than three pounds are 0.01 animal units each, and swine larger than 55 pounds are 0.4 animal units, meaning that 2,500 hogs equals 1,000 animal units.

As long as there are fewer than 2,500 swine planned for a confinement site at any one time, that site does not need a state construction permit to be built.

It is still required to have a manure management plan and to submit design plans that meet state construction specifications.

It must also follow state distance requirements regarding distance away from residences, businesses, churches, schools, public use areas, major water sources, designated wetlands, environmentally sensitive areas and public thoroughfares.