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Saturday, June 16, 2007

Ind. Decisions - "Dairy forbidden to handle manure"

Some quotes from Rebecca S. Green's story today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, headlined "Dairy forbidden to handle manure: Judge orders DeGroot to hire third party."

Owners of a Huntington County dairy will need to find someone else to deal with the manure generated by their 1,400 cows.

Huntington Circuit Judge Thomas Hakes ruled Friday the DeGroot Dairy, 8378 W. County Road 200 S. in rural Huntington County, and its owner Johannes DeGroot cannot apply any manure onto fields in the area.

DeGroot is required to either pump and haul the manure to an appropriate waste treatment facility or hire a third-party “custom manure applicator” to manage the gallons of manure generated at the farm.

The ruling, issued Friday, grants a request by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for a preliminary injunction against the farm to prevent it from discharging manure or contaminants into the tributaries of the nearby Salamonie Reservoir. * * *

IDEM officials revoked the dairy’s operating permit in May. DeGroot appealed the decision.

In its five years of operation, the dairy has frequently come under fire about its handling of manure.

Attorneys with the Indiana Attorney General’s office said the only time the dairy was not the subject of complaints was when an independent contractor handled the manure as part of an earlier settlement with IDEM.

But Peter Racher, an attorney for DeGroot, has argued there was no evidence connecting the most recent contamination in the creek to the dairy, its operation or its cows.

Here is a list of earlier ILB entries referencing "DeGroot."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 16, 2007 08:36 AM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions