Supervisors OK hog confinement expansion, IT director offer

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A small group of people were on hand Tuesday morning at the Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting for a public hearing on an application for a hog confinement building construction permit in the north part of the county.

There were few public comments made, however, and the supervisors approved a recommendation to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to approve the application by Knapp Finisher LLC for a 2,490-head deep pit swine finisher confinement building, to expand an existing confinement facility.

Supervisor Chairman Doug Kamm read one letter the board had received, from Ruth Farmer who lives on Underwood Avenue near the site of the proposed addition.

“There are many hog units in this area,” she wrote. “I worry about land values and water quality. I also worry about the future generation. Enough is enough.”

One person attending the meeting, Barb Boyer, who lives on 120th Street near the site, said she was also concerned about water quality, and wondered if what she sees as reduced water quality from her well could be the result of hog confinement facilities in the area.

“I’ve noticed that ours has started to smell lately, and you have to run it quite a while, and I just wonder if this has something to do with all of that,” she said.

Jeff Scherman, Floyd County environmental health administrator and sanitarian, said a smell coming from her well water is “probably not” related to confinement operations, but his department does offer free water tests.

“So anytime you want your water tested just call the office and set up an appointment,” he said. “I recommend everyone have their well tested at least once a year, anyway.”

After closing the public hearing, the supervisors briefly discussed the application.

“This one is pretty standard. It meets everything” in the state Master Matrix requirements, said Brian Ritland of The Pinnacle Group, an environmental consulting firm from Iowa Falls that helps applicants fill out the state Master Matrix to apply for a construction permit for livestock facilities.

Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said Floyd County is an ag county and “ag is part of our life,” but he thinks the Master Matrix needs to be reviewed.

He told Carl and Charles Knapp, who were at the meeting, “You play by the rules, and that’s all we can ask you to do. We just need to look at the rules and ask are they appropriate.”

The matrix offers many different ways to score points in categories such as air quality, water quality and community impact to reach the 440 points required to pass.

Many critics of the current matrix have said that because there are enough fairly standard ways to reach that point tally, few applicants select the measures to score points in some categories that could have a more beneficial environmental impact.

Supervisor Linda Tjaden, who is a farmer, said there is a concern that confinement operations increase truck traffic, which puts more strain on county roads, especially this time of year when they are very soft.

“We are responsible for that infrastructure, and being able to have the ability to keep our roads up as best we can,” she said.

“I want to be sure we’re supporting our agriculture,” she said. “I just want to make sure we’re recognizing that the trucks have got to get there. They’ve got to bring the feed. They’ve got to be able to get to these sites.”

Kamm said the confinement construction application process is frustrating for supervisors, because regardless of their recommendation the state DNR will make the decision whether or not to approve it.

“We go through all this stuff and read all the papers, but we literally have nothing to say about it anyway,” Kamm said. “It really comes from the state.”

Also at the meeting Tuesday morning, the board:

• Approved authorizing Kamm to sign a letter offering the position of county information technology (IT) director to one of three candidates that Tjaden, Scherman and Auditor Gloria Carr interviewed recently, at an annual salary of $54,000.

Tjaden said at a workshop meeting Monday that there were two standout candidates among those interviewed, and the three county officials were in agreement in how they ranked them first, second and third.

Tjaden made a motion to offer the position on a six-month probationary period, with the possibility for a salary review at the end of that time.

She said Monday that some of the candidates expressed a concern that the salary being offered was low for the requirements of the position.

• Approved the county’s secondary road budget and secondary road construction plan for the Iowa Department of Transportation, which includes spending $8.25 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1 on road maintenance, construction, equipment and general operations.