Keith Matheny

Detroit Free Press

A citizens environmental group is raising a stink over the large Hudson Dairy farm's manure spraying on vacant croplands, worried nutrients may make their way into nearby streams and western Lake Erie, where a nutrient-fed toxic algae bloom shut down Toledo-area water supplies in August.

But the farm's operators, as well as the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, say they are making hay over a moot issue.

The group, Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan, videoed a large tanker truck spraying liquid manure on empty fields Dec. 7.

"With Lake Erie having its toxic algae problem, a lot of that waste is very high in nutrients," said Janet Kauffman, a Hudson resident and volunteer with the nonprofit group.

"(They're) putting manure on a field where there won't be a crop for several months ... When it rains in the spring or melts and thaws, the moisture in the soil will all lead to streams. So there's a surge of phosphorus in the drains."

The farm, owned by Wisconsin farm conglomerate Milk Source, confirmed the manure spraying, but said it was following accepted agricultural practices. The Michigan DEQ agreed.

"Manure spreading happens around the state," DEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel said. "The operator in this case was required to turn the material under (the soil), which they did within six hours of the spreading."

The farm is regulated as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO — a larger livestock facility.

The farm's individual permit prohibits manure application to frozen or snow-covered ground, but the ground was unfrozen at the time of the application, said Rachel Koleda of the DEQ's water resources division in Jackson.

Manure spreading also is prohibited on the farm between Dec. 15 and March 15 of each year, meaning Hudson Dairy workers beat the calendar by a little more than a week.

Milk Source director of public affairs Bill Harke said the manure is turned into the soil "so when it's time to plant in the spring, the nutrients have been working already." The Hudson farm has about 3,400 cows, he said.

"If you look at the regulations that are required of large farms in particular, the methods required and used by those farms limit the opportunity that any (nutrient runoff) would happen."

Hudson Dairy also uses manure separators to reduce nutrient content in the liquid manure that's sprayed, Harke said.

"I think you can hold us up as an example of people who do things in a way that's environmentally sound," he said.

Addressing the nutrient flows into western Lake Erie is a problem Great Lakes states have worked on for decades. But it gained new urgency earlier this year, when a toxic algae bloom on the lake disrupted water supplies for more than 400,000 in southeast Michigan and the Toledo area the first weekend of August.

Several types of algae occur on Lake Erie. But the one that produces microcystin toxin is prevalent, and most concerning because it can damage the liver and kidneys. Unlike many other types of water contamination, boiling microcystin-tainted water does not improve — and may worsen — the toxin levels.

In February, the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian agency that works to resolve Great Lakes water issues, issued a list of recommendations to reduce the phosphorus loads reaching western Lake Erie — with a particular focus on agricultural practices, such as farm runoff that is the chief source of the nutrients.

Recommendations include avoiding phosphorus applications in the fall, and banning the spreading of manure and other biosolids on frozen or snow-covered ground.

Wurfel admonished the Environmentally Concerned Citizens group.

"It's disappointing to see a watchdog group spend its time and resources depicting regulated and approved farming practices as though they've exposed some dirty secret," he said. "This kind of PR stunt is a shame because it muddies an important conversation Michigan stakeholders have been having for some time, quite productively, about how to accomplish large-scale food production for an ever-growing world while safeguarding the natural resources."

Kauffman said the farm is near the Bean Creek watershed that flows into the Maumee River, a key tributary cited by researchers as one of the main sources of Lake Erie's nutrient load. She urged a revised permit for Hudson Dairy and other large farming operations near the lake.

"It's very important, we believe, that they take action now," she said. "Things have gotten so bad, so fast on Lake Erie that certain agricultural practices have to change substantially to maintain the water quality."

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com