BROWN COUNTY — By a 4-1 vote Tuesday, Brown County Commissioners approved a conditional use permit for a manure composting facility in Prairieville Township.

Commissioner Dave Borchert cast a dissenting vote on the application filed by James Heins of Ag Solutions, LLC of Mapleton on property owned by Mathiowetz Construction Co. Action came on a motion by Commissioner Tony Berg, seconded by Commissioner Brian Braun.

The county board decision reverses an earlier decision by the Brown County Planning and Zoning Commission to deny the application.

“I’m in agreement with the product. It appears to be very sound and stable. I felt we didn’t have enough information. I would have preferred to table it,” said Bochert about his decision to vote against the application.

“It was more of a procedural thing. I felt the planning and zoning commission that voted not to recommend it should have done the research. There was an informational meeting last Friday about it, but I had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t attend it,” he said.

Mathiowetz Construction Vice President Julie Anderson said she felt the application for a manure compost facility at the former Leavenworth Silage Co. site just north of Highway 14 and east of Cobden is not well understood and created fear when it was described as a manure product.

“It is not silage, as it was (at the site) in the past. We want to be good neighbors,” she said.

Anderson brought a bag of the composted manure product, opened it up and showed it to commissioners.

“I had this in my office for two weeks and nobody complained about any smell. This is the material that will come to the site. It’s very innocuous, (not harmful or offensive)” Anderson said.

Commissioner Tony Berg said he put the composted manure product in his hands and noticed only a faint smell.

“I support this. I grew up on a dairy farm. If this was raw manure, smell would be an issue. This is not,” said Berg.

“The odor is extremely minimal,” said Commissioner Braun.

“We will use the asphalt lot to store and assemble composted manure (now raw) and calcium products to create a natural soil amendment/improvement product called ‘Living Carbon.’ “ This end product will be distributed to area crop farmers in pursuit of improving soil by composting and recycling soil nutrients that are naturally provided to the growing crop, read the permit application from Ag Solutions.

Composting windrows will be created by combining composted dairy cattle manure bed pack; not raw; Calcite Turbo (a calcium and sulfur material) and Gypsoil gypsum or beet lime.

Materials will be assembled into four or five windrows using a compost turner. Windrows will cure/compost for two weeks, according to the application.

After two weeks of curing/composting, gypsum or line will be added and turned in with a compost turner. Windrows will be piled with a pay-loader. Stockpiles that must be below 12 foot high walls, will be hauled to crop fields in the fall or spring for application by spinner spreaders.

The goal of the Living Carbon manufacturing site is to provide a local, natural, beneficial and economical crop input product for area crop farmers to improve their soils, promote microbiology to thrive in the soil profile and recycle their crop plant nutrients.

Upon Brown County and MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) approval, the project would begin stock piling, creating and delivering product by fall or winter 2024.

Ag Solutions expects two to four inbound, five-axle trucks, loaded and scaled on site at 80,000 pounds each day product is being made, October through February and June through August. Five to eight outbound trucks are expected a day from March through May and September until snowfall.

Water is not used to create Living Carbon. Lot run off will occur naturally, according to Ag Solutions.

Landowner opposition letters were received by Brown County Planning and Zoning from two parties with property within a half mile of the site, Mike and Dawn Walter and Tim and Denise Horner.

“We do not want to gave to go back to smelling an awful manure smell. If you would like a facility like this, put it by a water/sewer treatment facility. It does not need to be placed where people have lived for generations,” read the Walter’s letter.

“We say absolutely no manure composting facility near our home. That manure pit would be less than a football field away from our front door and stink every day. Living next to a manure processing plant poses health risks due to potential exposure to various contaminants and pollutants,” read the Horner’s letter.

The Horners listed their key concerns as air quality, pathogens, nitrate contamination, odor and chemical burns, anti-microbial resistance from the use of antibiotics in livestock that can impact human health by making infections harder to treat. They also mentioned property value loss.