water permit SB facility

These three companies are owned by Mike, Dean, and Jared Walz.  Walz Energy LLC was formed in 2017 in a partnership between Supreme Beef LLC (owner of the AFO) and Feeder Creek LLC (owner of the proposed digester).  The land for the AFO and the digestor was sold by W6 Farms to Walz Energy for a few dollars. Feeder Creek was removed from the partnership in 2019 by court order, leaving Supreme Beef LLC as the sole owner of Walz Energy LLC.  No digestor was ever placed on the site.

Site construction costs may have exceeded $10M.  The agricultural loan from Peoples Bank of Wisconsin was secured by the Walz Energy site and by land holdings belonging to W6 Farms Inc.  In June 2021 the Agricultural Loan Account Agreement was converted by Peoples Bank to a Construction Loan Agreement and Revolving Loan Agreement totaling $16.3M.  The same W6 Farms properties remain as collateral along with “other good and valuable consideration”.

The site contains six cattle containment structures and the 39-million-gallon earthen manure storage pit. The cattle structures were essentially finished in 2019.  The earthen structure was completed in the fall of 2020.  Earthen manure structures are prohibited in karst terrain. In areas of karst, the applicant must show at least 25-foot vertical separation from the bottom of the pit to karst features (bedrock) to not be in “karst terrain”.

In September of 2017 a wastewater sewage treatment plant (STP) construction permit for an earthen anaerobic lagoon was obtained from the DNR.  STP earthen structures only require 10-foot vertical separation from karst features. The rationale was that the digester might at some time in the future also use food waste to supplement the manure feedstock. In reality the decision had been made by a member of the wastewater engineering group at a meeting in Des Moines in mid-March 2017.  We suspect because the AFO group refused to allow an earthen manure structure in karst terrain.

We believe that not even 10-foot separation from karst exists.  There were reports in August 2020, confirmed by the DNR, that explosives were used on site during the excavation of the earthen pit, and neighbors report seeing truckloads of rock being removed from the site.  In addition, the earthen manure structure is in the middle of a FEMA floodway and will obstruct the normal flow of floodwaters so that polluted water may flow in large quantities into five sinkholes located on the property.

During the period from 2017 thru 2020 Walz Energy – Supreme Beef were issued at least six NOVs (notices of violation) for stormwater violations, discharges to Bloody Run Creek, and violations of the STP lagoon construction permit. These were eventually settled for a few thousand dollars by two Consent Orders.  In 2019 a motion presented by the DNR to the Environmental Protection Commission to transfer enforcement from the DNR to the Attorney Generals office for more severe fines failed for lack of a second.

As an “open feedlot operation” Supreme Beef was required to submit a nutrient management plan (NMP) for DNR approval.  The plan must estimate the volume of manure and the amount of nutrients (N and P) that will be produced. It must also describe the way manure will be handled and stored, and through standard calculations determine the number of crop acres necessary to use the manure nutrients at agronomic rates.  We believe the plan underestimates the quantity of manure produced and grossly underestimates the nutrient content of the manure, thereby substantially underestimating the number of crop acres necessary to receive the manure without exceeding agronomic nutrient needs.

The over application of manure on NRCS-designated “highly erodible land” will lead to runoff of manure to surface waters and sinkholes, and the infiltration of pollutants through the shallow topsoil into karst – fractured limestone and dolomite. These are direct connections to the aquifer that supplies drinking water and replenishes cold-water trout streams in the area.  The Heitman study from 1980 shows just how interconnected surface water and karst aquifers are in the NE Iowa “Driftless Area”.