Egg-laying facility one step closer to reality

Turner County has granted conditional approval to an egg-laying facility that aims to bring 500,000 chickens and around 20 employees to a site about three miles from Parker.

The county board of adjustment voted unanimously to approve the application by Sonstegard Foods for two layer barns after nearly two hours of public comment and a closed executive session.

The permit can’t be granted officially until the board’s next meeting on March 3, at which the company will need to present a biosecurity plan, a waste disposal plan in the event of a bird flu outbreak and a new map of the site with two extra rows of trees.

It was the first official zoning hearing to discuss the pared-down chicken proposal, which came after more than a year of legal wrangling and controversy over the company’s original 6 million-bird plan.

A lawsuit over the county’s adoption of a zoning ordinance friendlier to livestock and heavy pushback on a similar revision last fall dashed the company’s hopes for what would have been the largest poultry production facility in South Dakota.

The smaller operation was pared down further from the original proposal, as well. Engineering changes dropped the number of birds from 600,000 to 500,000.

Pete Sonstegard, the VP of Sioux Falls-based Sonstegard Foods, said Tuesday’s approval is a win for rural economic development, and could lay the groundwork for more development in the future.

“It’s a good step for animal agriculture in Turner County, and ultimately the state,” Sonstegard said after the hearing.

The win didn’t come easy.

Opponents gathered petition signatures throughout the county, urging zoning officials to reject the permit. At least a dozen opponents spoke on Tuesday, citing concerns about potential health and environmental hazards and on the potential loss in property values they might feel on their acreages.

“Most of us have worked on our properties our whole lives,” said Rosemary Armstrong.

Katie Overvaag, one of the plaintiffs in the 2015 lawsuit against county, presented commissioners with a binder filled with information on environmental and Occupational Health and Safety violations by companies affiliated with Sonstegard Foods.

One issue in particular came up before public comment even began: A fish kill in Osceola, Dickenson and Clay counties in Iowa traced to the company’s Sunrise Farms facility.

That facility had to kill off millions of chickens last year after a bird flu outbreak.

Sonstegard lawyer Brian Donahoe told the zoning commissioners that the contaminated water was used to clean the facility.

“They needed to get the water disposed of, and someone at the plant made a mistake,” Donahoe said.

Overvaag told commissioners that the fish kill issue, when looked at in the context of the company’s other violations over the years – violations Donahoe described as “technical” – should be taken seriously.

On the fish kill issue, she said, “the Iowa Attorney General’s Office is still determining its enforcement action,” Overvaag said.

Overvaag also pointed to issues with egg shell disposal and manure pile-ups. Mark Joffer told commissioners that the history of violations showed the company to be untrustworthy.

If the company were a good neighbor, Joffer said, there would have been neighbors to its Harris, Iowa facility at the hearing.

“They’re here to paint the prettiest picture they can,” he said.

Sonstegard supporters pushed back hard against the accusations that the company was a trouble player in the egg business.

Donahoe responded by reminding the commission of the details presented in the permit application: The facility near Parker would be a modern one, for example, with constant ventilation and a manure dryer to cut down on smells. The manure itself would be stored and sold as commercial fertilizer, not applied to fields through a manure management plan, similar to a hog facility.

The eggs wouldn’t be cracked and processed in Turner County, either.

“Everybody that’s opposing this is pointing to Harris, Iowa or other places,” he said. “… This is completely different.”

Don Nelson told the commission that the egg industry is heavily regulated and that any company in the business for four decades could be painted as error-prone if every violation were logged.

“What I’ve heard up here, for nearly two years now, is scare tactics,” Nelson said.

Nelson said the opposition’s arguments about health hazards were overblown, noting that his wife and in-laws grew up in feedlot-heavy northwest Iowa.

“My wife doesn’t have two heads,” he said.

Dale Melin, who described himself as a truck who’d “hauled a lot of eggs,” said he’s not concerned about the corporate ethics of Sonstegard’s operation.

“It’s a clean place,” Melin said. “I’ll tell you, there’s nothing to be scared of over there.”

The zoning board’s decision could become final after March 3.

John Hult is the Reader's Watchdog reporter for Argus Leader Media. Contact him with questions and concerns at 605-331-2301, 605-370-8617. You can tweet him @ArgusJHult or find him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ArgusReadersWatchdog