Dakota Layers looks for other expansion options

Moody County Commissioners said it would be unlikely that they would give Dakota Layers permission to build a 160,000 free-range chicken laying facility east of Trent.
Commissioners said the zoning laws, which became more restrictive in numbers of birds in December, don’t allow it and any such operation at that location is above the shallow aquifer, which has rules in place for its protection.
As of Friday, the company proposed another option. Dakota Layers applied for five locations, on property the family owns in the county, where it wants permission to build facilities with smaller numbers of birds at each. Four of those would be a Class D Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, and one would be a Class C, both smaller than the original Class A, said Kendra Eng, zoning administrator with the county.
While multiple sites are less efficient and a more costly way of doing business, the larger expansion at one location didn’t seem like it would meet commission approval after the May 4 meeting.
“We went along and did all of this project with the knowledge at the time that we purchased everything that we were in compliance,” said Scott Ramsdell with Dakota Layers. He said he hoped the commission could make an exception because the laying hens are smaller than other birds, including turkeys.
“These are not bigger birds. They’re smaller birds,” he said. “They don’t have enough litter that your rules are stating.”
Jason Unger, Dakota Layers lawyer, said the change in zoning eliminated the category that laying hens were in and asked if that could be put back in the regulations.
Commissioners told Ramsdell and Unger that they had given public notice that they were working on new zoning ordinances at the time so the company should have known it was happening. Commissioners also said a larger laying facility couldn’t be approved because it is over the shallow aquifer, which needs to be protected as a source of drinking water.
Dakota Layers purchased 120 acres of land seven miles south of Flandreau, at the intersection of 239th Street and 480th Avenue, in November. Birds at the location would produce dry waste, that would be stored temporarily on site and then removed to be used as fertilizer.

For the Ramsdell family, which owns Dakota Layers, it’s too late now to completely abandon a $16 million plan for the property because contracts have already been approved, including agreements with customers. Under the original plan, the company would have started with a flock of 20,000 hens and grown to 160,000 birds. Under the new plan, they would scale that back to a smaller number.
The new barns are in a different location than the company’s main CAFOC north of Flandreau, where more than a million hens produce eggs inside of bio-secure areas in a sterile environment. They are never outside. The expansion plan is intended to meet a growing market demand for free-range, organic and other higher-cost eggs, in which the hens will have time to go outside of the barn for part of the day.
Commissioner John Schiefelbein asked if Dakota Layers could have requested a conditional use for the egg production facility before buying the land.
Dakota Layers did look at the rules that were in place at the time and based their decision off of that, Ramsdell said
“Based on your rules, we were OK,” he said. “We were basing it on the rules that we knew that were in place there at that time.”
Dakota Layers also has renovated the former Dakota Transformer building in Flandreau for its packing facility for the eggs. Plans call for having production by summer 2022.
Commissioner Rick Veldkamp said none of the commissioners are experts and relied on ordinances used by other counties. “I don’t know how we can look at changing it,” he said.

In other commission business,

•In a tie vote that was broken and approved by president Carla Bruning, the commission agreed to spend up to $100,000 toward installing a hard-surface road near River Bend Dairy southeast of Trent. The money would come from a rebate the county anticipates it will get from the state for the investment by the dairy.
Commissioners Veldkamp and Dan Miles supported the plan, while Schiefelbein and Randy Hemmer opposed it.
•Schiefelbein brought two envelopes to the meeting, saying he contacted the companies to get sealed bids to repaint the county highway storage garage across the street from the elementary playground. He also told county highway employees to remove some old panels on the building.
“It’s an eyesore,” he said.
Commissioners had not given prior approval nor advertised for bids for painting so the bids could not be concealed official sealed bids. State’s Attorney Paul Lewis said the amounts of the bids, $5,541 and 8,000, were small enough that the commission was not required to advertise for bids.
Lewis said Shiefelbein hadn’t broken any law in seeking the information on painting from two contractors but combined with asking county employees to do specific work, the actions are outside normal decorum for the elected officials, who do not have direct authority over assigning work to individual department employees. That is the responsibility of their supervisor.
Commissioners voted to approve the estimate by Brad Grootwassink from Flandreau, who had the lower cost.