Public Comment - Laserfiche WebLink

Cass County Commissioners Meeting 12/16/24 Good afternoon, my name is Erik Olson and I live on a Farmstead south of here in Richland County. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to come here today and provide some important information regarding a project that will affect all of the Red River Valley. You may have heard on the news recently about the proposed Abercrombie Dairy that is being brought in by a large LLP called Riverview.This 12,500 head dairy"confined animal feed operation" or"CAFO as they are commonly called",will be located just 3 miles south of the City of Abercrombie.This CAFO was quietly started back in January/February 2024 but not brought to the awareness until August 2024. Since that time,several community members have been getting together to educate ourselves and fully understand how this mega dairy will be affecting the surrounding communities. What we have learned, is beyond the scope of simple concern. Without going into all of the concerns that the community has, I will keep my points directed to the most urgent and pertinent issue.That issue is-WATER.With water being one of our most valuable resources that we have, most everyone has the same concern about not only the amount of water but the likely contamination of this entire Red River Valley. I am bringing all this information to the Cass County Commission because,this proposed mega dairy will be affecting not only Richland County but Cass county as well, and potentially many other communities along the Red River. The environmental impact that this dairy could have on our resources, is not something that we can ignore. I am not here to try and convince you that animal agriculture is a bad thing.Animal agriculture growth is a positive thing for our state, but location must be carefully considered. 1.Let me start with Water Usage. This dairy will require a minimum of 350,000 gallons of water per day!That equates to more than 120 million gallons of water per year.Where that water will be coming from?... is still in question. I will tell you though that there is currently an"application for appropriation"of water with the state, that is requesting a pumping rate of 2,000 gallons of surface water per minute.That site for appropriation is directly next to the Red River. We have to ask ourselves; How will that affect the Red River and others who rely on the river north of the site?Is there enough water in the Red River to handle something like this?How will it be affected in years of droughts? 2. Now the other huge concern is Water Contamination. The proposed Abercrombie Dairy is 1.4 miles from the Wild Rice River and 1.8 miles from the Red River.The community members have hired David Erickson, a respected Hydrologist from Montana, to review the exact data from what the North Dakota Department of Environmental quality has gathered, and has concluded in his findings,that the water in our Valley will be contaminated from this one mega dairy.The contamination will be coming from the lagoons, manure spreading, heavy rainfall events,flooding, etc.The bottom of these manure pit lagoons are only about 22 inches from the water table.The state does allow these lagoons to have a certain seepage rate, and calculating