Otto Farms, Summit Pork receive Gage County approval for swine operation

BEATRICE – More than a half-year since being filed, Gage County has approved a permit for a joint project between an Adams farm family and Summit Pork, of Iowa.

The Gage County Board Wednesday voted 5-2 in favor of a special use permit in Hanover Township between Pickrell and Adams, for a 6,250 head swine finishing operation. The vote followed a lengthy debate which added conditions to the permit on tree screening, groundwater monitoring, waste injection and rendering.
Farmer Dean Otto will receive manure from the Summit Pork operation to be injected into his fields as fertilizer.

"Where I live there's five hog buildings...two outside lagoons one mile south of me. We do not have an issue with the smell. Whoever runs them does a nice job. From them, in the last few years, less than a quarter mile south there's been one new house built...you go southwest there's been another new house built about another quarter mile. You go another half mile there's been a third house built near this hog facility. If you want to live some place, you're going to live some place. The smell is not there."

A supermajority vote of the board was required since the filing of an opposition petition by nearby landowners.  The project has been controversial, mainly over concerns such as odor, dust, and possible effects on surrounding properties. The project is being sited in a county recognized as livestock-friendly and will receive hogs from Livingston Enterprises near Fairbury.

Opponent Ivey Blum called the project people-unfriendly…and said it will create odor.

"You chose commerce and corporations over the residents of Gage County. You're choosing an out-of-state corporation from Iowa...and an out-of-county corporation from Jefferson County..to come in and take over our lives where we live....where our peace...where our homes are."

Opponent Robert Wallman says the project does nothing to help small farming.  "We want small farms...we want beginning farmers, we want small farmers, starting farmers, livestock friendly. They have some manager out there from someplace else. This is not small farmers, it doesn't help small farmers. Let's have some livestock friendly. I had nothing against, when he first called me and said he wanted to put up a hog shed with his boy. I had nothing against that at first. Then, when I found out it was this larger operation, I said no."

Austin Zimmerman, who lives near Wymore…said farming, however, has changed.

"In the world we live in today, we're trying to feed more people, with less. this barn is point-in-case. It is very sustainable, it is designed to be the most energy efficient, possible. And, to be the best stewards of the ground. I also want to point out that it is a local producer....a local builder here in town building it.....taxpayers within the state."

Two county board members, Eddie Dorn and Don Schuller voted against the special use permit..At least two board members indicated the restrictions placed on the project, were too great. Supervisor Terry Jurgens saying…"We farm around a facility that Livingston's operate in southwest Gage County. It is spotless around that place. There is no odor, it has an outdoor lagoon. We farm it."

The project met the criteria for approval of the county under its land use and zoning regulations. It will hold manure inside a structure before it is removed and injected into Otto’s fields for fertilizer.

It’s not the only Summit Pork proposal on the drawing board. The Alden, Iowa company is seeking a permit for a similar operation near Liberty, along the Gage-Pawnee County line. A public hearing on that proposal will soon go before the county’s planning and zoning commission.