Bismarck Tribune

By LAUREN DONOVBy LAUREN DONOVAN

Barb Price planned to go on a bus trip Wednesday to Manitoba to look at a swine operation.

Then she got barred from the swine barn, so she stayed home.

Price is the Coal Country organizer for the Dakota Resource Council.

Oliver County extension agent Rick Schmidt put the tour together, because investors are looking at a 5,000-hog farrowing facility on reclaimed mine land two miles south of Center.

Five partners, including Dan and Bill Price of rural Center, would own the $7.5 million facility. They are not related to the environmental organizer.

Craig Jarolimek, a North Dakota market facilitator for Landmark Swine Elite, who's been consulting with the investors, said he told Schmidt that Barb Price could not tour the farrowing facility in Souris, Manitoba.

He learned she was coming when he asked Schmidt for a list of names and their affiliations.

Jarolimek said the company has a policy that prevents environmental activists from being part of larger tour groups, and Barb Price was treated the same as if she were a member of the Sierra Club or PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"We'd be naive to think something good would come of that," Jarolimek said. He said environmentalists like Barb Price are disruptive to group tours, but the company is willing to be transparent with them on a one-on-one basis.

The tour expenses, including staff time to arrange it and gas money, was paid for and organized by the State Agriculture Department.

Agriculture department deputy Jeff Wiespfenning said Barb Price was welcome to ride the bus, but the department followed Landmark Elite Swine's policy regarding environmentalists.

Weispfenning said the department could have told Swine Elite that either the whole bunch took the tour, or they stayed home, but decided to continue the tour.

Schmidt said he accepted Elite Swine's policy and didn't see a need to debate it.

Barb Price said she was upset at being booted from the tour because she wanted to see a farrowing facility like the one proposed for Oliver County to help her understand the issues.

Barb Price said the DRC has concerns about liquid waste, its effect on ground and surface water and odor.

"If we're wrong, we admit it," she said.

She said she thinks her exclusion was payback, because she was the one to tell Oliver County about what was going on after a year of meetings involving the State Agriculture Department, the Public Service Commission, BNI Coal and the investors.

Schmidt said the tour was valuable to the 11 Oliver County residents who did go.

The tour group was made up of Oliver County and city officials, business owners and rural residents who would live just outside the required one and a half mile setback from the farrowing barn.

Schmidt said the Manitoba setup was clean and the odor both at the barn and waste treatment lagoon was minimal. The lagoons that hold the liquid waste are tarped.

The Oliver County farrowing operation has yet to be formally presented to county officials and likely won't be until January, Schmidt said.

The potential investors, which include the Prices and William Cornatzer, a Bismarck physician, have met with the PSC.

Jim Deutsch, who heads the PSC's reclamation division, said the investors are interested in 40 acres owned by BNI Coal.

The acres already have been mined and reclaimed.

He said the land would have to be transferred from BNI to the investor group. The normal 10-year performance bond schedule for agricultural land can be shortened if the land is used for industrial purposes, instead.

Deutsch said the industrial use has normally involved ash burial sites for power plants.

"We've never done one for a facility like this," Deutsch said. He said the request would be a significant change in the mining permit and would be subject to public hearing.

Jarolimek said the Oliver County farrowing facility would hold 5,000 hogs that would be artificially inseminated to birth about 125,000 piglets a year.

A facility of that size would generate about 4.8 million gallons of liquid waste a year.

He said the waste is equivalent to about one-quarter inch of liquid injected 6 inches deep over 1,200 acres. The company would get a permit for 4,000 acres and then rotate the waste applications.

He said the phosphorous and nitrogen waste is an asset for farmers, especially with the high prices of chemical fertilizers.

Barb Price said the DRC also is concerned that operations like the one in Oliver County aren't simply "hotels" for Elite Swine pigs as a way to get around North Dakota's anti-corporate farming law.

Jarolimek said North Dakotans would own the facility and that Elite Swine might be asked for a management deal.

He said the piglets could be sold to companies like Cloverdale Alliance, which is looking for pigs to finish for processing.

Barb Price said Cloverdale tends to finish pigs in small 250-animal hoop barns, which allow many small farmers an opportunity to diversify.

Schmidt said the venture has potential for Oliver County and would create 19 jobs.

He said Oliver County residents will get the names of people who live near Elite Swine's facility in Manitoba and interview them separately.

"I don't think they have anything to hide from environmentalists," Schmidt said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 1-888-303-5511, or lauren@;westriv.com.)