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Mr. and Mrs. Nugent Page 2 December 7, 1979 northwest of you. They were proud of the gigantic trees which grew in this area that was too wet to grow corn and alfalfa. What has happened since is typical of the pendulous pressures on land. Meanwhile, houses grow where the building industry puts a package to- gether and all of local government then directs its energies at reacting to the people in those homes. You will continue to have problems as long as you farm in that location. The biggest reason will be that those homes are on land which is not suitable for homes.. Those homes will have new owners more often than will be typical of the rest of Ramsey. Those 10 or 15 homes will have water in their basements, they Will have failures in their on-site sewer systems, the roads will be expensive to maintain in the "yello~ violet" garden and the drainage ditch banks will erode at even greater r~tes. And everyone will continue to blame the farm with unsubstantiated claims and complaints. The banks of the creek is somewhat protected by the fact that you are using itas a livestock yard rather.than'having a house every 100 feet with the resultant bank erosion caused by construction and higher rate of runoff. Running pigs all the way to the creek would be very damaging to the bank. And ranging beef cattle in some manner as Dill's had for 40 years, will not harm the creek bank as long as it isn't overgrazed. Thereis a small watershed of water which runs off the 3 or 4 homes to the west and north of you and gets to the creek through your land. You should think of ways of shaping the land on your west property line to run that water away~fromyouf buildings. I believe it could go south into the ditch of Green Valley Road and thence into the creek. The city would then have to solve the problem of the creek bank erosion at that point. When they approved the plat, I expect they only had a moral and not a legal obligation for storm waters. If you run these storm waters to the north, you will need to build some kind of a structure to get this water over the bank without eroding it. I suggest Bill Vidrine of the Soils Conservation Service for detailed, technical assistance. If you don't change the water, you will eventually have water in your basement. It also is a source of abnormal amounts of water washing manures from your feedlot. ThJ next step is to design and construct some manure handling techniques which stores the manure away from runoff waters and in such a way that odors are diminished. There is no way that either animal manure or human waste can be returned to the environment without some odors. For example, the odor from septic tanks in this "yellow violet" valley will hang in the area on high humidity days. Just as it will from your feedlot, al- though chances of thermal currents sweeping smells up and away is greater near the creek bank than from 200 yards from the creek.