Commissioners approve waste disposal plans for dairy

The owner of a dairy north of McCook has addressed concerns voiced by the state, the county and most of his neighbors, and Red Willow County commissioners Monday morning approved his conditional use permit application to incorporate two more center pivot irrigation systems into his waste disposal program.

Members of the county's zoning-planning commission added two stipulations to their approval of the request:

1. That owner Rick Roberts of Three Star Dairy blend 60 percent fresh water with the lagoon waste water (which is already substantially fresh water) that he will run through the pivots, and,

2. That Roberts build dikes on any low areas on the fields that the two new pivots will irrigate to prevent runoff.

Wolford said Roberts has no problems with meeting either stipulation. Roberts will also continue to meet requirements from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality that he take soil and water samples annually.

Roberts told Reuben Hoff Jr., a neighbor west of the dairy and south of the proposed two new pivots, that the new pivots will be equipped with backflow prevention to protect groundwater supplies, and that wells will be metered to ensure that waste water is blended 40/60 with fresh water.

Hoff told commissioners that he has had no problems with Roberts's operation of his dairy, but asked that any exemptions granted to Roberts be subject to study and re-approval to any new owner, if the dairy is sold at any time in the future.

Darcy Eckhardt, director of the county's planning commission, told commissioners that exemptions approved for the dairy now would automatically be carried over to a new owner. Wolford said the dairy facility, if it were ever sold, "would be worthless without the permits" already granted for its operation.

Roberts said it has always been his intention to increase the amount of land upon which he spreads liquid waste. The amount of liquid waste will not increase, he said, just the area of land over which he spreads it.

The new system will put less pressure on the existing pivot, the ground it irrigates and the groundwater, Roberts said, by spreading the same amount of liquid waste over the larger area covered by the new pivots.

The lagoon from which Roberts will pump holds 7 1/2 million gallons of liquid waste. Pumping at 300 gallons a minute, the system will pump half a million gallons in one day. The lagoon could be emptied (except for the four to five feet that always remain) in 3 1/2 to four days, but Roberts said, they will never pump that much.

Pumping will be seasonal -- during the corn-growing season -- he said, and even then, not every day.

Commissioner Leigh Hoyt said he has owned the land on which the original pivot is located, and that Roberts has taken many steps to address runoff and be a good steward of the land. Hoyt said he has no qualms about approving Roberts's request.

Hoyt and Commission Chairman Earl McNutt said they are confident that if runoff ever became a problem, another neighbor, Andy O'Dea, would be quick to let commissioners know.

Commissioners approved the permit request unanimously. McNutt said the bottom line is that Roberts is following the rules -- environmental and zoning. "All we expect is that everyone follow the rules we've implemented for Red Willow County," McNutt said.