A Polk County judge has reversed the decision of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to approve the manure management plan of a massive cattle feedlot near the headwaters of a prized trout stream in northeast Iowa. The decision stems from a 2021 lawsuit filed by the Iowa chapters of the Sierra Club and Trout Unlimited against the Iowa DNR and Supreme Beef LLC.
The ruling sends the case back to the DNR for reconsideration.
The lawsuit says the agency approved a faulty manure management plan near Bloody Run Creek. In his ruling Friday, Judge Scott Rosenberg said the DNR used “illogical interpretations and applications to approve a nutrient management plan for the feedlot.”
“They have to follow their own rules and they didn’t do it in this case,” legal chair for the Iowa Sierra Club Wally Taylor says. “What [DNR] did was because Supreme Beef’s operation didn’t fit the rules, DNR tried to make the rules fit Supreme Beef and the judge said that’s not going to work.”
Feedlot operators have to submit a nutrient management plan (NMP) that says how much manure the company will produce. Taylor says the judge’s decision demonstrates how “inappropriate” and “mixed up the rules are for a livestock operation” in the state of Iowa.
During the Jan. 20 hearing in Polk County Court, Assistant Attorney General David Steward, representing the DNR, said Supreme Beef’s 39 million gallon manure capacity was more than adequate. But Judge Rosenberg points out in his ruling that the DNR approved manure samples from a smaller beef slaughtering facility called Upper Iowa Beef.
“The IDNR claims that Upper Iowa Beef is an open feedlot like Supreme Beef,” Rosenberg writes. “However, UIB is a cattle-slaughtering operation, not a feedlot.”
Judge Rosenberg’s decision also points out the NMP for 11,600 cattle was initially going to be denied by the DNR.
“After discussions with IDNR, it was determined that Supreme Beef could withdraw this application for 11,600 cattle. Supreme Beef could then submit another NMP for 2700 cattle,” Judge Rosenberg writes. “This was suggested by IDNR Director Kayla Lyons after a phone call with State Senator Dan Zumbach, Jared Walz’s father-in-law.”
Walz is one of Supreme Beef’s co-owners. Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee and Supreme Beef LLC is not in his district. Bloody Run Creek is in Clayton County, a part of the state known for its environmentally sensitive porous limestone or karst terrain.
