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Hearing Scheduled To Discuss CAFO Permit Changes

DENR

The South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources is reviewing its regulations for farms and feedlots where thousands of animals can be grown in a single location. A hearing to reissue the general permit for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations is happening this fall. Some groups want stricter regulations to protect air and water from pollution.

 

The hearing to reissue the permit is scheduled for September in Pierre. The current conditions were set over a decade ago. Kent Woodmansey administers the DENR’s feedlot permit program.

 “The contested case hearing allows people that want to, that think there should be different conditions in the permit to present evidence to the Department Secretary,” Woodmansey says. “And after the hearing he will make a final decision on what the permit conditions will be.”

Woodmansey says the hearing was originally scheduled for last year, but Dakota Rural Action requested more time to put together a case for changes they’d like to see in the permit.

Kelsea Kenzy Sutton is a member of Dakota Rural Action, and is representing the group as their attorney for the contested case hearing. She says she wants to make sure natural resources are protected. She says updating the permit is moving in the right direction.

 “It’s been outdated for several years now,” Sutton says. “But I do think that there is a lot of work that can be done that is more progressive in terms of protecting our natural resources and our water than what is on the table right now.”
 
Sutton says there are things she is asking the DENR to change, but she says there’s common ground that everyone can work with.