I am writing this letter to notify area residents about two Sibley County conditional use permits requesting permission to construct two separate confined pig operations. Each warehouse-style barn would house up to 5,980 pigs less than a mile from U.S. Highway 19. Such operations could be detrimental to the environment and the community.
My land is less than 2 miles west of Winthrop on Highway 19. One barn would be upwind, directly across County Road 53, a few hundrded feet from my land.
I am in the process of building a new home to replace the home destroyed by fire in 2018. I was never warned that a commercial hog operation was in the works until a few days prior to the hearing this month. Since then, I’ve learned that a pig system could emit a horrible stench and produce so many pollutants, my health and that of the whole community could be in jeopardy.
My deceased husband, Dallas, and I spent our lives making that acreage good farmland. When it came time to retire, we decided to do something for the community and turned all the farmland back to nature for the benefit of wildlife, the environment and the whole community. It is now natural prairie wetlands providing food, water and shelter for wildlife, enjoyment for the community and, according to environmental agencies, helping to cleanse the water that people use all the way to the Minnesota River.
The land can never be used for farming again, only recreation. I am not receiving any money but am content to enjoy nature and the aesthetic benefits of this now wild, natural land and its inhabitants. I am especially happy knowing the environment and the entire community benefit from this restoration project. Now all of that could be destroyed should a confined hog system be installed across the road from that restored land.
The kind of operations that are proposed use so much water, they could actually deplete the groundwater supply used by other residents. Contamination of surface and groundwater, such as the infiltration of bacteria, could be a problem due to the huge volume of animal waste. Drainage from manure spread on adjacent fields could impact the quality of surface water in ponds and ditches used by waterfowl, deer, birds and furbearers.
The stench alone would be unbearable while trying to be outdoors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that such foul odors can be smelled 6 miles away.
Imagine being exposed to dangerous fumes such as hydrogen sulfide, methane and ammonia blown by huge fans out of the barn and across my land and the community, including the city of Winthrop. It is said the animals and any humans inside one of those barns would die if the dangerous fumes were not blown out into the surrounding community.
Other statistics I’ve read state that water could be contaminated by antibiotics used on the animals causing resistance to antibiotics in humans. Also, the taxpayers would be liable to keep the roads usable for more heavy truck and machinery traffic necessary to operate the system.
I am not against family farms raising hogs with fresh air available; I am against big industrial operations running family farmers out of business by raising thousands of hogs in confined systems, all the while contaminating the community around them.
For all who are interested, the hearing on whether or not to grant these conditional use permits is at 6 p.m. on Aug. 5, 2019, at the Sibley County Courthouse, 400 Court Ave., Gaylord.
