Agenda - Council - 07/14/1992 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASE NU~IS/~NCE ABATEMENT; HOG FARM ON 14.32-2~43-0001 By: Zoning Administrator Sylvia Frolik Background As you may r{ eall,i on March 10, 1992, the City Council directed Mr. Barthold to reduce the size of his pig fart L fro~ 750 to 450 pigs as a means of reducing the nuisance odors. Mr. Barthold was given a dc adliae of July 1, 1992 to comply with this directive. This case is on the agenda as a follow up to C!mndil's verbal agreement with Mr. Barthold in March. Observations: On June 8, Imet With Jake Barthold to receive progress reports regarding Council's direction to reduce the si~of Se operation to 450 pigs. At that time, Mr. Barthold reported to me that the size of the operation l~d been reduced by 236 pigs, leaving approximately 514 pigs on the site. He stated that he doubl~ed he could meet the July I deadline, but that he would continue to ship pigs at the rate of 30 per W~ek until the herd was reduced to 450. On July 6 1 tallied With Paul Anderson, a veterinarian at Minnesota Animal Health Contyol. As you recall, the Bar~holc[s have a State permit to feed the pigs recycled foods. Paul indicated that the Barthold pig ~fgrm !is inspected monthly. The last inspection was June 18, 1992 and without a doubt, the opCrati0n is in compliance with State regulations. Some of the items inspected are sanitation o~ garbage treatment area and equipment (garbage is cooked at 212 degrees for 30 minutes); insu~ngithat untreated garbage is not accessible to animals; pest control; leakproof containers for garbgge to prevent leakage onto ground; proper disposal of excess garbage; health of animals; maint~na%e of records; etc. On July 7, I talked t~o Mark Stewart at MPCA regarding the status of Mr. Barthold's feedlot permit. Mr. Barthold's[Sta~ feedlot permit that was supposed to have been issued last March has never been offi¢ially~iss%d. The reason the permit has not been issued yet is because Mr. Barthold was given tw° all:~afi~es -- (1) Increase the acreage of that area being used for landspreading the manure because e0, ncentrated deposits of hog manure in sandy soil can become a groundwater problem); or:(2) R~duce the herd to 550 pigs (200 feeders and 350 grower/finishing hogs). Even though there'Was a!sufficient amount of acreage to handle the landspreading of manure from the number of h°gg estimated to be on the site when MPCA inspected last March (more than 550 but less than 700)~ MrI Barthold did not want to bring landspreading operations any closer to the existing neighl~ors than it already was. Therefore, he chose alternative #2, which was to reduce the animal nu~ber~; to 550. Mr. Stewart also told me that there has not been any follow-up on this permit becaus~Mr. IBarthold indicated that the hog farm operation would be moved to !santi. As a matter of fact, ia M?CA regional inspector has inspected and approved the proposed site in Isanti, but nothing mcke h~s been heard from Mr. Barthold in the last six weeks. Mr. Stewart stated that within the nextra30 days, MPCA would be inspecting the subject hog farm to initiate enforcement of reducing the h~g nd~mbers to 550 or increasing the landspreading area. Mr. Bartholdcalled me on July 7 to report his progress in reducing the hog numbers to 450. Mr. Barthold statoxtithat[the size of his operation is back up to approximately 700 pigs because the sows gave birth to ilnottter 200 piglets. Mr. Barthold contends that until 4 in 40 density zoning is abolished, the ~og ~i~grm is a reasonable means of turning a profit on his investment in the property. I instructed M~; Batthold to be prepared to supply the City Council with some evidence as to the number of pigg' that!were kept on the property in 1990 at any given time. I selected 1990 because ~f there were~gs 6, n the property prior to 1991, then the number of p~gs being kept must have been at an acceptable level because there are no odor complaints on record for that year.