Dairy generates pollution complaints

EATON – Beth Wilkinson recently spent four days in the hospital being treated for an upper respiratory ailment that she attributes at least in part to her next-door neighbor, the 11,240-cow Johnson Dairy east of Eaton.

“I’ve never had problems before, but in the last year or so I’ve had constant sinus infections and headaches,” she said. “I don’t have any proof that it was the dairy, but it certainly had to have contributed.”

Wilkinson and her husband, Bill, have lived 12 years next to what was once a small feedlot but over the last six years has mushroomed into the biggest dairy in Colorado and one of the largest in the nation.

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But what was once a shining example of state-of-the-art dairy efficiency has fallen onto hard times. Johnson Dairy owner John D. Johnson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January after accumulating almost $50 million in debts.

And while the bankruptcy action continues, representatives of the dairy will be appearing before the Weld County planning commissioners and county commissioners in August to seek approval for improvements completed last summer.

Sound confusing?

Chris Gathman, county planner, said the hearings are set to consider approval for a new stormwater pond, feed area and expansion of the dairy’s manure composting area. The dairy has been operating under a “Use by Special Review” permit that must be formally amended when significant improvements are planned.

“It’s intended to address changes that have occurred since the last amendment in December of 2006,” Gathman said. “Staff made a determination that it was a substantial change to the (USR) permit, so we required them to come in with an amended application to add these changes.”

Gathman said the changes will add 11 acres to the dairy’s 202-acre site.

AGPROfessionals owner Tom Haren, who is representing Johnson Dairy before the county, said each of the changes in and of itself would not require an amendment to the USR. “(The county) determined that, in aggregate, there were enough changes that we should amend the USR,” he said.

The improvements were all made before the Jan. 8 bankruptcy filing.

Haren said the dairy has kept bankruptcy officials apprised of the approval process for the improvements. “It’s been an upfront process with both the bankruptcy court and the parties involved,” he said.

Mismanaged for years

Neighbors feel the dairy operation has been mismanaged for years, with owner John Johnson taking less and less care to avoid offending those living nearby.

“John’s a very good friend of ours and was a good neighbor when he just had a feedlot there,´ said Beth Wilkinson. She said watching the dairy grow has been “just incredible,” to the point that the stench of the operation has become overpowering.

And it’s not just the odor, she notes. Dust from the dairy has also become a huge issue.

“Every time we have a windstorm, you literally can’t be outside because you can’t breathe,” she said.

John and Eileen Connell have also watched the dairy expand, after buying their home on the south side in 2002 when it was still a fairly innocuous feedlot with a few thousand animals. “We had no knowledge or warning there would be a dairy,” Eileen Connell said.

She said the smell has grown exponentially as the former feedlot has grown nearly fivefold. “It’s so bad,” she said. “You can’t be outside. And you call the health department and they don’t do anything about it.”

Trevor Jiricek, Weld County’s director of environmental health, said he’s aware of the neighborhood complaints. “We have received over the years a significant number of odor-related complaints and some miscellaneous complaints,” he said. “But we have never found a violation of them violating the odor standard that’s applied there.”

Jiricek said he sympathizes with those who must put up with the dairy’s odor. “Dairies certainly have the potential to create odor problems because of the huge amounts of manure and water that are generated.”

Debbie Warehime, another nearby neighbor, said her horse-boarding business has been negatively impacted by the ever-growing dairy operation. The dairy’s southeast corner slopes downward toward her property.

“We get the whole brunt of it,” she said, noting that water flows and the wind blows directly toward her. “The worst thing is the dust. We get particulates from the manure piles.”

Polluted creek

Warehime said she filed a complaint with the state against Johnson Dairy in 2005 for allowing waste water to seep onto her land and into a nearby creek. On Oct. 17, 2005, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued Johnson a cease-and-desist order for a violation of the Colorado Water Quality Control Act. The order cited the dairy for discharging E.coli-polluted water into Lone Tree Creek.

The state gave the dairy 105 days to resolve the problem and submit a final report to the Division, and threatened fines of up to $10,000 per day for each day during which a similar violation occurred.

Ron Jepson, agricultural program specialist for the health department, said the situation was finally resolved in October 2007 when the dairy received its discharge permit related to the violation and paid a $10,500 fine.

William Suhre, attorney for Johnson Dairy, said he believes the dairy has been responsive to neighborhood issues. “There was a period when the county was getting lots of complaints,” he said. “We’ve been very diligent in complying with environmental issues. John (Johnson) meets with neighbors periodically and with the county periodically to do everything legitimately to correct any issue.”

But the Wilkinsons, Connells, Warehimes and others take issue with that assessment.

“The fact that he’s never had to follow the rules is just wrong,” Warehime said. “Someone like John will still get to do what he wants, and that’s just not right.”