Minnesota Milk objects to MPCA proposal with time to comment running out

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Minnesota Milk objects to MPCA proposal with time to comment running out

The director of Minnesota Milk is encouraging dairy farmers in the state to speak up about a draft permit that he says could negatively impact manure management.

“We can’t solve all the problems of water by just trying to regulate manure applications to a certain window.”

Lucas Sjostrum is referring to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s General National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System proposal.

“They’ve taken generalities like ‘don’t spread in the winter’ and changed them into rules. For example, one of the rules would be don’t spread solid manure in February and March.”

As a general guideline, he calls that a good idea.  But Sjostrum tells Brownfield there typically are days during that period that are good for spreading solid manure.

“So we’re just encouraging MPCA to reconsider and work on local conditions. What we don’t want to do is have less people spreading manure at certain times of year because that will just enhance the load at other times of year.”

The public comment period for MPCA’s NPDES proposal ends Thursday at 4:30. 

The proposal and instructions for how to comment can be found here.

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