Environmental groups sue EPA over water pollution from large livestock farms
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September 18, 2023
Anthony Souffle, Star Tribune
Sonja Trom Eayrs, shown here at the family farm near Blooming Prairie, is a member of Dodge County Concerned Citizens, one of the groups suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to try to get it to change its rules on water pollution permits for large livestock farms.
BLOOMING PRAIRIE, Minn. - Sonja Trom Eayrs walked down the gravel driveway of the family farm, surrounded by soybeans and corn almost ready for picking. She pointed in every direction. There are 12 large hog farms in a three-mile radius of their Dodge County home, she said, and the fall is when growers typically spread the manure.
The smell is bad enough, she said - it once made her father vomit - but all the manure from growing livestock operations is overloading the county, polluting groundwater and the water running to the start of the Cedar River, she said.
"We're supposed to just take it. Well, we're not going to take it anymore," Trom Eayrs said.
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