On Friday, Dakota Resource Council (DRC) sued the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) over a September 25 approval of a state animal feeding operation permit for Riverview LLP’s 25,000-cow Herberg mega-dairy in the Red River Valley. Dakota Resource Council is represented by Food & Water Watch and Wild & Scenic Law Center. The lawsuit was filed Friday in both Traill and Burleigh Counties.

Mega-dairies like the planned Herberg operation are major sources of surface water, groundwater, and air pollution. Under the permit issued by DEQ, Riverview’s Herberg mega-dairy will generate and store more than 200 million gallons of manure and pollutant-laden wastewater annually in clay-lined ponds located partially within a floodplain. All of this manure will ultimately be applied to fields within an approximate 15-mile radius of the mega-dairy, all within the Red River watershed. DRC’s appeal alleges DEQ issued the Herberg permit without necessary pollution controls, including discharge monitoring and reporting, in violation of state and federal law. 

Food & Water Watch Staff Attorney Dani Replogle said:

“It doesn’t take a genius to understand that plopping 25,000 cows in the middle of the Red River Valley is a recipe for disaster. Riverview’s expansion of its factory farm empire into North Dakota is bad for water quality and bad for North Dakotans. DEQ’s reckless approval of this Herberg mega-dairy permit will not stand in court.”

Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said: “The Red River is part of the drinking water supply to Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead and Grand Forks. North Dakota should not follow the example of Iowa. Des Moines has spent millions of dollars to upgrade water treatment plants to handle excess nitrate levels from fertilizer and CAFO’s upstream. Yet in spite of spending an extra $16,000 dollars/day for treatment, water restrictions were in place for much of last summer.”

The Herberg mega-dairy is Riverview’s second in North Dakota approved this year — and as approved, it would be the state’s largest. The facility is set to be located just a mile and a half from the Red River of the North, which drains into Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba’s largest freshwater body. There are 27 residential wells within two miles of the mega-dairy. Construction of Riverview’s Abercrombie Dairy with 12,500 cows has begun in Richland County. Local residents continue to oppose it, citing concerns over its proximity to the Red River, location over a very superficial water table, and Riverview’s exhaustion of their only water source.

Agriculture is the nation’s leading polluter of rivers and lakes, with factory farms responsible for a significant share. Factory farms are designed to discharge pollution, and are authorized to use land application practices that are known to cause runoff and leaching of nitrate and other dangerous pollutants. Food & Water Watch analysis finds that U.S. factory farms produce 941 billion pounds of manure each year — twice as much as the sewage produced by the entire U.S. population.