Republicans who control the state Senate threatened last week to slash Minnesota’s budget for environmental programs if Gov. Tim Walz doesn’t drop, or at least pause, his plan to adopt new auto emission standards.
But the electric vehicle rules aren’t the only new pollution standard the GOP is trying to repeal at the Legislature this year. Senate Republicans also want to stop regulations that aim to curb water contamination from manure fertilizer at the state’s largest animal feedlots.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says the rules, which went into effect in February, are based on up-to-date science and are meant to help prevent some of the agricultural pollution that poses a threat to drinking water and wildlife across much of the state. But the GOP, and a broad lineup of agriculture trade groups, have criticized the rules as inflexible in a way that hamstrings farmers and may not always help water quality.
What the regulations do
The regulations in question are part of the MPCA’s Feedlot General Permit, which applies to about 1,200 businesses: a mix of dairy farms and ag operations that raise cattle, poultry and hogs.
Only the largest feedlots have to get the permit, which is required by federal clean water laws but developed and administered by the state. A dairy farm, for instance, would need to have 715 cows to fall under the permit regulations, said Lucas Sjostrom, executive director of the Minnesota Milk Producers Association.
Katrina Kessler, assistant commissioner at the MPCA, said those 1,200 mega-farms are responsible for about one-third of the manure produced in Minnesota. That manure is frequently used as fertilizer to grow food for the animals, a practice that has benefits over using other fertilizer.
But manure still carries a risk of seeping into groundwater or getting washed into waterways. That pollution can make drinking water dangerous and harm wildlife and their habitat. The feedlot permit aims to limit pollution by restricting farming practices.
[image_caption]Katrina Kessler[/image_caption]
One of the most controversial new rules in the permit bans feedlots from applying solid manure to frozen ground in March and limits it during February. The MPCA determined March was a particularly high-risk month for manure runoff because the fertilizer can get carried into waterways when snow melts or during early-spring rains when the ground is frozen.
Kessler said farmers might put manure on the fields over frozen ground simply to store it cheaply, though she said the fertilizer can carry some benefits for crops if it doesn’t runoff.
The previous permit requires farmers to plant cover crops in June, July and August when a farmer applies manure to soil after harvesting their primary crop. Cover crops, such as rye, clover and alfalfa, can be planted before or after a more traditional crop like corn and soybeans. The practice prevents nutrients in fertilizer from leaching into bare soil and polluting groundwater.
The revised permit now extends those requirements for cover crops to September. During the first half of October, farmers who apply manure now have to implement one of four nitrogen management practices, including planting cover crops or ensuring soil temperature is below 50 degrees.
Why many ag groups — and the GOP — are opposed
The new regulations, developed over 18 months, have drawn a litany of complaints from a wide range of ag groups who say the rules aren’t flexible enough. Sjostrom, from the Minnesota Milk Producers Association, disputed data used by the state and said the MPCA is wrong to emphasize calendar dates over natural conditions in limiting when farmers can spread manure.
It’s not that farmers want to put manure on frozen ground, he said. But in late March, for instance, the ground may not actually be frozen, and timing may be ideal for spreading manure. Similarly, he said frozen soil in the fall can make it impossible to plant cover crops, and he said other barriers can restrict a farmer even if they support cover crops in theory. “We may run out of cover crop seeds,” Sjostrom said. “Other farmers who have figured out how to make cover crops work for themselves could be screwed because we force a lot of these farms under this permit … to use cover crops even if they don’t want to. It might be wasted because they’re throwing it on frozen snowy ground because that’s what the law says.”
In a February letter, Kevin Paap, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, called the changes to the feedlot permit “unreasonable,” and said the organization specifically opposes the ban on spreading solid manure during winter months.
[image_caption]Kevin Paap[/image_caption]
Senate Republicans have advanced a measure that would bar the MPCA from prohibiting solid manure on fields during February and March. It would also ban the agency from requiring cover crops in September and making farmers implement nitrogen management practices to prevent pollution in early October.
Lawmakers are currently negotiating a two-year budget and hashing out other policy differences before the legislative session is scheduled to end Monday. While the GOP has a majority in the Senate, Democrats hold a majority in the House. The latest offer made by Republicans on environmental issues includes repealing the manure and cover crop regulations.
[image_caption]State Sen. Bill Weber[/image_caption]
“I really didn’t believe that they were mindful of what is all involved in terms of the operations of a, particularly, cattle feeding or dairy operation,” Weber said of the MPCA.
MPCA defends the new rules
In an interview Friday, Kessler said the feedlot permit is more flexible than farming organizations have made it out to be. She said, for instance, if the ground is no longer frozen or covered with snow in March, their prohibition on spreading manure doesn’t actually apply. They also had initially banned manure application in February, but rolled that back after feedback from farmers. March, the MPCA decided, is the “most problematic” month for runoff, Kessler said.
As for cover crops, Kessler said farmers won’t be penalized if they can’t successfully grow cover crops, they just have to “do your level best to get it going.”
“It may be that some weather event or soil condition prohibits (cover crops) from growing, but if you tried your hardest that’s enough,” Kessler said.
One argument for keeping the new regulations, Kessler said, is if the MPCA doesn’t update its permit based on the newest science, it risks having state authority over the rules pulled or limited by the federal government. The feds may be more difficult for farmers, she said.
Kessler said environmental groups have also pushed for tougher regulations and supported their efforts. In a February letter to lawmakers, John Lenczewski, executive director of Minnesota Trout Unlimited, said misapplication of manure has caused the “periodic devastation of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems” in the state. Runoff of nutrients into streams from snowmelt and early spring rain causes “rapid depletion of oxygen and kills fish and the aquatic food chain,” Lenzcewski said.
[image_caption]Lucas Sjostrom[/image_caption]
Sjostrom said even if the permit has some flexibility in theory, feedlot operators at risk protracted fights over soil conditions if people who dislike feedlots (or the smell of manure) start reporting them for applying the fertilizer during March. He also said local governments could view the MPCA rules as best practices for smaller operations, and start applying the rules more broadly.
The permit regulations are likely to be a contentious issue as lawmakers debate final budget and policy agreements. There is at least some opposition among House Democrats.
State Rep. Todd Lippert, DFL-Northfield, said during the Wednesday conference committee hearing that water quality and preventing nitrogen contamination is a key concern in his district. Limiting MPCA authority “feels like we’re going backwards instead of in the right direction.”
Not all Democrats support the MPCA regulations, however. Two DFL Senators — Kent Eken of Audubon and Nick Frentz of North Mankato — voted to advance Weber’s bill out of a committee in February.
At least the GOP is going thru legislative channels.
The electric car mandates were forced on us by non-elected officials.
Mandate on car dealerships to buy them and forcing them to offer them.
I presume they’ll have to buy at least one to have on the sales floor to meet the mandate when the mandate police come to enforce it.
That’s a load of Trump.
If a dealership sells electric cars, there will have to be a trained employee working for the dealership. There is no requirement that a dealership sell electric cars.
Reality is your friend. Don’t fight it so hard.
> She said, for instance, if the ground is no longer frozen or covered with snow in March, their prohibition on spreading manure doesn’t actually apply. … As for cover crops, Kessler said farmers won’t be penalized if they can’t successfully grow cover crops, they just have to “do your level best to get it going.” “It may be that some weather event or soil condition prohibits (cover crops) from growing, but if you tried your hardest that’s enough
Sounds . . . reasonable. As usual, Republicans sound like they’re making up BS arguments to disguise the fact that what they really don’t like about the new rules is that it may force someone (i.e., farmers) to do things for someone else’s benefit (i.e., everyone who uses water).
“As usual, Republicans sound like they’re making up BS arguments . . .”
I see what you did there.
The MPCA is showing more flexibility than the ag and milk groups are granting. I’d love to see the farmers and their Republican advocates admit to the problem of contaminated rivers and ground water and show some compromise for the good of all instead of crying “unreasonable.”
How about a straight ban on based on a metric that varies based on when the frost is out of the ground by county?
Of course putting manure on a frozen ground or a snow bank is going to result in water pollution. Businesses (which these big operations are) need to get over the notion they get to share their major sources of air and water pollution with others for their greater convenience or profitability.
If you want to fine tune legislation, step up and suggest alternatives! That is how government works!
This is why we can’t have nice things.
So instead of proposing an alternative, one that addresses the supposed concerns of the mass polluters (no matter what they like to label themselves), the GOP proposes throwing out regulation of a massive pollution source in it’s entirety. Yep, that sounds rational and reasonable.
That’s what they do in California.
That’s in the current mandate for MN. Dealers must offer an electric car. Which means they must purchase one to sell. Whether in Minneapolis or Montevideo MN.
“That’s what they do in California.”
I want you to read this carefully: California and Minnesota are two different states. That means they are not the same. Go ahead, read it again. Let it sink in.
“That’s in the current mandate for MN. Dealers must offer an electric car.”
Not true, and repeating it is not going to change anything. Dealers must sell vehicles that meet low emission standards, and manufacturers are phasing out gasoline-powered cars.
What’s wrong with electric vehicles, anyway? Consumers seem to want them. I know that right-wing agitprop outlets tell you that they’re bad, but that seems like a less-than-compelling argument.
Cover cropping solves lots of future problems……makes no sense to fight it.
What a surprise. Republicans are on the corporate profit side rather than on the side that protects safe drinking water and the state’s most valuable resource. Who would have guessed?
This article illustrates why the public has been developing such a distrust in government in general and specifically the MPCA in this case. If the MPCA was truly science driven, their proposed legislation would be based on soil temperature rather than the calendar. Unfortunately this article on the MPCA is an example of the true comment that “common sense is not very common these days”; well at least it is a truism at the MPCA!
Since you didn’t read the whole article I’ll read it to you, slowly.
“if the ground is no longer frozen or covered with snow in March, their prohibition on spreading manure doesn’t actually apply”
Putting manure as a fertilizer on frozen ground, so it could leach off the soil, would be as dumb as planting corn with the soil at 40 degrees. Farmers would not do either. Why in the hell would you waste time, effort and money to have fertilizer run off of the fields you use to grow crops on? A set date in Minnesota for the frost to be out is plain stupid. This year is an example of a cold late spring, as far as soil temps go. Every year is a bit different or at times quite a lot different.
I am sure some guy in a suit knows better than a guy actually working the land.
Why in the hell would you waste time, effort and money to have fertilizer run off of the fields you use to grow crops on?
Because I expect proportion of incompetence, laziness, and entitlement among farmers runs at a similar proportion to that of the rest of the population. You know, the ones you call out as incompetent, lazy, and entitled when you complain about your tax dollars being spent to improve their lives?
Did you read the article? Did you read the previous comments and responses? Just in case you didn’t see the excellent response below from Dan Landherr:
By Dan Landherr
1 hour ago
Replying to Mike Downing
Since you didn’t read the whole article I’ll read it to you, slowly.
“if the ground is no longer frozen or covered with snow in March, their prohibition on spreading manure doesn’t actually apply”
Well Joe, I see manure spread on frozen fields, snow covered fields all winter and spring when we drive up to the lake. (Cows poop all winter long) And since most farmers want to use every inch of tillable acreage, we have been here before, with the farm folks resistance to a buffer zone to water ways, we can easily expect that some of the manure is spread right to the edge and perhaps beyond. (I’ve got nothing against farmers, we all got to live on this planet). One last point, laws are written with dates on them because otherwise they are near impossible to enforce, what every farmer going to put a government connected frosto-meter in the ground at various places on their acreage?
Basing the prohibition on the calendar rather than local conditions does seem like bureaucratic rigidity – almost as rigid as the responses from right-leaning readers decrying the whole notion of limiting water pollution by regulation. I look forward to reading stories of Republican legislators and their farm organization supporters volunteering to consume nitrate-polluted water. Many of the streams and ponds in SW Minnesota are already so polluted that they are – literally – unsafe to swim in, nor should any fish caught in them be consumed, annual “fishing opener” notwithstanding. Speaking as someone whose farm work years ago involved manure-spreading in the spring, I agree with Mr. Smith that it would be foolhardy to spread manure on a snow-covered, frozen field. That won’t keep some farmers (the “foolhardy few,” which sounds like a country band name) from doing it anyway because – surprise, surprise – THEY often operate from a calendar rather than a soil-temperature test or what their eyes are telling them, and sometimes, they give their own convenience a higher priority than any consequences their downstream neighbors may have to deal with.
Of course, it’s a little tiresome to have the same people railing against government interference by defending the car dealer’s right to ignore climate change while simultaneously railing against government interference by defending the “right” of some farmers to pollute water sources used by everyone, farmer or not. If we insist that 3M and other manufacturing facilities meet pollution guidelines which, I’d guess, are often inconvenient or costly for their operations, why should farmers be exempted from similar regulation, particularly when, in the aggregate, farm pollution of water sources is often at least as severe, and with similar health and safety consequences, as industrial pollution? The fact that it’s usually farther away from urban centers doesn’t magically make the pollution disappear.
How many “businesses” have 715 cows or the minimum number of cows concentrated in a “facility” that is so concentrated that it needs a point source Clean Water Act permit to regulate the manure and polluted water discharges? To call these operations “farms” is an abuse of the English language. They are industrialized animal waste production facilities which produce what is charitably called “food” as a byproduct. I wonder how many “farms” have 714 cows just so they avoid having to get the permit? It’s antics like this complaining about the most modest regulations (to protect the groundwater and surface water for heavens sake!) which will eventually turn all of us into vegans.
You are full of you know what.
Most of our food comes from these farms. There us no difference from the milk from a 10 cow dairy or a 1000 cow dairy. A 700 cow dairy is likely owned by a family of one or two generations.
Banning spreading in the winter is just as likely to impact small farmers who can’t afford storage
Have you ever stood downwind of a 1000 cow or 700 cow dairy operation (I don’t consider such an operation to be a farm)? Or a 1000 hog feedlot? Your nose will tell what’s what’s wrong with these operations, if nothing else will. I don’t know if “most of our food comes from these farms” but if so, it doesn’t follow that that is a good thing. What your nose tells about the smell, these regulations ought to tell you what’s wrong about these operations with respect to the water and soil. Or what’s wrong for the animals. Animals in these “concentrated animal feedlot operations” or “CAFO”s are not raised in pastures or allowed to graze but are fed a diet of grain. The operators know this is unhealthy; these confined animals are therefore given antibiotics in their food and water to prevent the inevitable sickness and disease. This has given rise to antibiotic resistant bacteria which have come into the food chain and our water through the spreading of manure from these feedlots. Feedlots are not good for animals or for humans who are sold the products of these facilities as “food.” One reason we have so many e.coli and other bacterial outbreaks at meat processing plants.
https://www.greenamerica.org/antibiotics-dairy-industry-what-you-need-know
Tacit US agricultural policy is “get big or get out.” CAFO’s are the intended outcome of dysfunctional agricultural policies since WWII designed to destroy small farming; they represent what big agriculture describes as an “efficient food system”. That is good for corporate profits, but not for the animals or the humans involved.
Consumers can choose to boycott food from CAFO’s by buying certified organic food from farms that adhere to principles of pasture raising animals. It’s true that organic food costs more but why is that? Food policy is basically governed by agricultural subsidies designed to protect farmer from the business cycle of oversupply and undersupply. Price supports are designed to pay farmers not to overproduce. Why in the USA does the taxpayer subsidize the overproduction of food by industrialized operations and not the production of food by “organic producers” to make such food affordable to all? Why do consumers have to spend more money to buy food which ought to be “organic” in the first place?
Your points are well taken, but I would advise caution as to evangelizing the organic foods industry too much. It’s no less a racket in many cases.
True. But I don’t mean to evangelize the organic food industry. I mean to say that there would be no such thing as special “organic foods” that would require a special separate industry if the US had a sane and sustainable agricultural policy that did not promote industrialization of food production.
Cargill is a ‘family owned’ business too but we still expect them to abide by a variety of health and safety regulations.
The issue isn’t that the milk is qualitatively different from a small operation versus a large one. The issue is that large operations- with hundreds or even thousands heads of cattle- have outsized impacts on water quality. These large operations need to take steps to keep their negative impacts away from the rest of us. I’d like to believe that smaller operations will also take steps- but the manure from 10 cows probably isn’t going to permanently impair any of our rivers or streams.
No cows = no manure. Problem solved.
The article makes clear that the proposed permit regulation would “burden” (which is too strong a word) exactly 1,200 large scale corporate “farms”. So (admitted) pollution by Big Ag what these elected Repubs are protecting. That their “counter-proposal” is to scrap the regulation entirely and blithely ignore the pollution pretty much gives the game away.
1. “This is my land and before that it was my daddy’s land and his daddy’s before that and don’t tell me how to run it”
2. “Hey, when does my crop subsidy check arrive?”
You want #2? You better play ball on #1.
This. The “don’t tell me how to run it” is the same mentality as those individuals who believe everyone should be paying them to continue to mine coal because that’s what their daddy did, that’s what his daddy did, etc., and by golly, don’t tell me I need to learn something else. The rest of us have to learn an adapt, but there’s a certain number of people who feel entitled to never do so.
Interesting to see the deflection attempts of “conservatives” to drag into the discussion a supposed mandate to auto dealers to have to provide a slot for low emission vehicles (or whatever the hell the imagined egregious “burden” is supposed to be). Whether true or not, can one really imagine being outraged over such a requirement? Yes, indeed, when will the (giant corporate) auto dealers’ pleas for justice ever be heard? I guess this is supposed to be a persuasive reason why MN Repubs are correct to flush a regulation protecting water resources from admitted pollution, one that affects only the 1,200 largest “farms” in the state, without proposing any alternative whatever to address the known problem. That’s “conservatism” at its best!
As for the phony outrage over the lib’rul persecution of auto (really truck and SUV) dealerships, it’s ridiculous, especially when one considers it involves the greatest ACTUAL existential threat facing all life on earth. But the “right” of a capitalist to be free of every bizness regulation trumps even that concern, naturally. Capitalism is a suicide pact, apparently…