Investors in a 6,000-sow operation in rural Grant County were issued a permit to operate by the State Health Department's Division of Water Quality.

The department said the operators must install a leak detection system to its underground manure storage and sample groundwater both before operation and every year after. The permit was issued Friday.

The $8.5 million operation to breed sows and sell litters to feeders in Iowa will be on land owned by Leo and Gerald Bachmeier, southeast of Carson.

The facility will be called Hilltop Pork and will be one of three facilities operated by the North Dakota Sow Center.

It's estimated the animals will generate 7 million gallons of manure waste, which will be stored in deep pits beneath the three barns and then spread over surrounding crop and hay acres.

It will also require 24,000 gallons of water a day for the pigs. Local residents told the state they were worried about that kind of demand on the underground aquifer. At the department's public meeting, some residents said they were concerned about odor and disruption in the rural neighborhood.

The requirement to monitor at least one nearby well will help mark whether the aquifer is being drawn down.

Leo Bachmeier said the investors are talking about getting some water from the Southwest Water Pipeline.

Bachmeier also said the facility will bring 16 to 18 jobs to Grant County.