North Breeze dairy still stalled 
by Mark Berglund
The Star News
December 17, 2009 —  The fate of the proposed North Breeze Dairy farm in the Town of Little Black is back in the hands of the Taylor County Land Conservation Committee. The committee met Wednesday morning to look at the issue following the December 1 preliminary approval by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources of a revised nutrient management plan.
With the state's preliminary approval, the issue comes back to Taylor County for the approval of the permits needed.
After a 75-minute discussion of the issue, the committee decided it would take no action until after it studied the new plan further. The next committee meeting is January 19. Committee chairman David Krug said he called Wednesday's special meeting because he felt the issue needed a response before the January meeting. It will also allow the conservation department and committee and Taylor County corporation counsel Steve Anderson time to review the options.
The North Breeze Dairy is a proposed a 4,000-cow concentrated animal feeding operation in the Town of Little Black.
The revised plan is based on actual data from the Lake Breeze Dairy in Fond du Lac County, a similar operation in scale and management to the North Breeze Dairy. Developers got the OK from the DNR to substitute actual numbers from tests there from the University of Wisconsin survey which develops baseline or "book" numbers. The plans are required of all farms and they develop criteria for decisions like how many acres of land must a certain amount of manure be spread on to prevent runoff problems.
Crop specialist Paul Sturgis, who developed the plan for North Breeze, was at the meeting while Brian Gerrits of North Breeze and attorney Dave Crass spoke via speaker phone. In addition to the committee and land conservation staff, Anderson was present for the county. An audience of two Town of Little Black board members and four other residents was present.
Steve Oberle of the Taylor County Land Conservation Department started the meeting by saying the department and committee have a responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of local, state and federal rules and standards. He asked why the county was just receiving the revised plans when the state had them October 22 for review.
Crass said the developer’s first focus was meeting the state's rules threshold and they felt it would be a waste of local resources to move the plan forward until the state gave its OK. "The dairy is a non-starter without state approval, which we have received," Crass said.
Crass asked the committee to reconsider its August decision to object to the permit. He said the county had a legal requirement to follow state law and not deny the permit on a higher standard than state law requires.
Anderson said the committee would be at a disadvantage in making a decision without reviewing the revised plan. "Maybe the revised plan tells us why the Lake Breeze figures were used," Anderson said.
Crass said the similarity of the Lake Breeze outputs and North Breeze design mean the plan should be workable. "You are saying more than likely, but you can't guarantee it," committee member Chuck Zenner said. Crass said it would be an unreasonable assumption to think data does not support the plan.
Krug said the committee needed time to study the plan. Crass said the North Breeze developers would welcome that. "This is not a request to ram this through," he said. Krug said the committee would do more than second the state approval. "I can assure you here in Taylor County this committee is not here to rubber stamp items for the DNR," Krug said.
Committee member Scott Mildbrand asked if the DNR switch in data was a big turnaround on the issue. Crass said the switch is much more common than it appears.

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