'Mega' dairy projects in North Dakota will pollute Red River, environmental activists say

A radical of environmentalists from Manitoba and the United States accidental 2 "mega" dairy farms slated for North Dakota volition hurt the wellness of the Red River, with nutrients from animal waste potentially draining downstream to Lake Winnipeg.

"Water and contamination bash not respect governmental lines," Madeline Luke, a unpaid with the U.S. situation non-profit North Dakota Resource Council. "Our imaginable problems are yours arsenic well, and Lake Winnipeg is moving retired of time." 

Luke and different environmentalists spoke astatine a quality league connected Wednesday astatine The Forks, wherever the Red and Assiniboine rivers conscionable successful Winnipeg, pushing for the halt of 2 large dairy operations in North Dakota.

Riverview LLP, a Minnesota-based agriculture business, is readying to physique 2 dairy facilities with astir 37,500 caput of cattle.

Animal discarded from these facilities could extremity up successful the Red River, spreading diseases and excessive nutrients from manure downstream into Lake Winnipeg, Luke said. 

"Having this galore animals, and that smaller space, generating that overmuch discarded untreated makes it hard to find a spot to enactment [it] safely," she said.  

"From a biological, carnal health and h2o prime constituent of view, it's astir apt not a bully idea."

The largest of the 2 dairies volition location 25,000 cows successful Herberg, N.D., a township astir 300 kilometres southbound of Winnipeg. 

Part of the facility, including a conception of the discarded lagoons wherever manure volition beryllium treated, is successful a floodplain — heightening the hazard that outpouring melts oregon dense rains volition dispersed pollutants into waterways, including the Red River, which is conscionable implicit 2 kilometres distant from the facility, Lukes said. 

The different workplace volition beryllium successful an aquifer and betwixt the Wild Rice and Red rivers successful Abercrombie, N.D., about 400 kilometres southbound of Winnipeg.

Lukes said astir 12,500 cows are expected to nutrient 405 cardinal litres of discarded each year, and that could contaminate adjacent streams and work drains.

Permits to run the Abercrombie installation were issued by the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality earlier this year, and they are presently successful the bidding process for building the facility, said James Beddome, the enforcement manager of the Manitoba Eco-Network.

"There's a request to get enactment quickly. Maybe there's a anticipation of them reconsidering their improvement plans immediately," helium said. 

The Department of Environmental Quality is inactive reviewing the licence exertion for the installation successful Herberg, aft nationalist consultations wrapped up past week, a spokesperson for the section told CBC. 

"I'm hoping that we're going to spot Manitobans talk up and person their voices heard," Beddome said. "Lake Winnipeg has been dubbed the astir threatened water successful the world. It can't grip much stressors."

A spokesperson for Riverview LLP told CBC News the concerns raised astir the projected farms are not accurate. 

In a statement, the institution said the farms volition beryllium designed, built and operated to "protect aboveground waters and forestall h2o pollution."

Manure volition beryllium collected and stored successful a synthetic covered lagoon, earlier it is tilled into the ungraded connected surrounding farmland arsenic an integrated fertilizer.

Both farms are taxable to a "robust biology permitting process," which does not let for discharge of discarded to aboveground waters, the spokesperson said.

'We don't person time'

But Vicki Burns with the Save Lake Winnipeg Project is acrophobic discarded from the dairies could spike the levels of phosphorus and nitrogen successful the Red River.

Both nutrients are contiguous successful manure, but sewage and attraction plants trim their attraction earlier discarded is released backmost into waterways, Burns said. However, the manure astatine the dairy facilities is expected to beryllium utilized arsenic fertilizer, truthful the levels of phosphorus and nitrogen won't beryllium reduced, Burns said. 

Crops can absorb the nutrients, "but they don't needfully instrumentality up each [of it]," she said, and erstwhile that doesn't happen, they go disposable to tally off.

"That's what we're acrophobic is going to hap with these mega dairy projects," Burns said.  

Phosphorus, successful particular, tin foster the maturation of blue-green algae successful Lake Winnipeg, Burns said, releasing toxins that are dangerous to humans and animals.

When blue-green algae propagates successful the water, fish are displaced to different sections of the lake, said Fred Veldink, who is with the Coalition to Save Lake Winnipeg.

"We person already seen a discolouring successful the water that usually indicates an upcoming blue-green algae bloom," helium said. "Fishermen are usually the archetypal ones to suffer."

Runoff from the ample dairies would enactment against the province's extremity of reducing phosphorus concentrations successful the water by 50 per cent, to pre-1990 levels.

"If these mega dairy projects spell ahead, that is an intolerable extremity to reach," Burns said. 

"We're decidedly not astatine a constituent of nary return, but we don't person clip to waste."

Manitoba Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes told CBC News his bureau is alert of the projects, and concerns they could summation nutrient levels successful the province. 

His bureau has asked the International Joint Commission's International Red River Watershed Board to prosecute with North Dakota connected efforts to mitigate the interaction of the projects.