Star Tribune
Farm seeking to expand its dairy operation loses legal fight to Winona County
Owners of the largest dairy operation in Winona County have lost a key legal battle in their years-long fight to triple the size of their feedlot.
District Judge Douglas Bayley this week threw out a lawsuit by Daley Farm of Lewiston, Minn., that claimed Winona County commissioners had stacked a zoning board vote to ensure the farm’s proposed expansion would fail.
The ruling is a major victory for several environmental groups and water quality advocates that have organized against Daley’s expansion and the dairy industry’s shift, as a whole, to consolidation and fewer, bigger operations.
And it’s a relief for officials with Winona County, which has been sued by the Daley family several times since first denying their request to expand far beyond the county’s feedlot size limits in 2019, said Paul Reuvers, a lawyer representing the county.
“This is the nail in the coffin,” Reuvers said. “It was a well-written order that we fully expect to stand even if [the Daleys] decide to spend more money to appeal it.”
In a statement provided by Matthew Berger, a lawyer representing Daley Farm, the family said it will appeal.
“The evidence in this case overwhelmingly demonstrates that Winona County officials actively conspired with Land Stewardship Project,” a group opposed to expansion, to reject the farm’s plan before it could get a fair hearing, according to the family’s statement. “We hope that the higher courts will correct this grave injustice and restore the fundamental right of all citizens to a fair hearing.”
The Daley family has been running the dairy in Lewiston, about 30 miles east of Rochester, for more than 160 years. It grew over the generations and now has capacity to house 1,608 cows and 120 calves — the equivalent of 2,275 animal units as calculated by state law.
Twenty-five years ago, when Winona County set a limit on feedlots at 1,500 animal units, Daley Farm was grandfathered in and allowed to maintain its size. But the family wanted to roughly triple the operation and started applying for state and local permits in 2017 to expand to about 4,000 cows and 525 heifers, for a total of roughly 6,000 animal units.
Environmental groups and neighbors who were worried about water pollution opposed the plan, reflecting strong concern over large feedlots in southeastern Minnesota because of the area’s geography.
The unusually porous rock in the area allows manure used as fertilizer to easily contaminate wells and groundwater with nitrate, which can be toxic and even deadly for infants. The region suffers from generally higher nitrate levels. The EPA estimated this month that the water supplies for more than 9,200 people in the area are likely contaminated with hazardous amounts of nitrate and demanded state agencies do more to reduce it.
A Winona County zoning board first denied the Daley family’s request for a needed variance to expand in 2019. That decision was thrown out after the family appealed and a judge found that three members of the zoning board were too biased to fairly consider the proposal.
A new zoning board was appointed. It again denied the Daley family’s request to expand in 2021. The board split on a 2-2 vote on the question whether the Daleys had any reason for the expansion that wasn’t financial, and the tie vote constituted a denial.
The Daleys sued once more, saying the county again failed to give them a fair hearing and that the two zoning board members who voted against them were biased from the start. One of the two had been involved with Land Stewardship Project, the family argued.
The Daleys, however, could not “point to any actual evidence of bias,” Bayley wrote in his decision. Pointing out one member’s “tangential involvement” with Land Stewardship Project falls well short of proof, the judge wrote.
Bayley added that the zoning board’s decision to deny the variance was reasonable.
Sean Carroll, a spokesman for Land Stewardship Project, said the core issue is the competing visions for what rural Minnesota should look like. One vision holds with continued consolidation of dairy farms into larger operations, he said, and the other wants to keep smaller farms viable. The Winona County animal unit cap was created to try to keep more farmers on the land, Carroll said.
“This is a clear final decision form the courts,” he said. “It’s time to move on. The county and the community has a lot more to be doing.”
Two people from Minnetonka were killed late Friday afternoon when their GMC Suburban ran a stop sign and was struck by a GMC Yukon headed north on Hwy. 169 west of Palisade, Minn.
According to the State Patrol, Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, and Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, were dead at the scene. The driver of the Suburban, a 61-year-old Minnetonka man, was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The Suburban, pulling a trailer, was headed east on Grove Street/County Rd. 3 at about 5:15 p.m. when it failed to stop at Hwy. 169 and was struck by the northbound Yukon. The Yukon then struck two westbound vehicles stopped at the intersection.
Four people from Zimmerman, Minn., in the Yukon, including the driver, were taken to HCMC with life-threatening injuries, while two passengers were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Three girls in the Yukon ranged in age from 11 to 15.
The drivers of the two vehicles struck by the Yukon were not injured, the State Patrol said. Road conditions were dry at the time of the accident, and alcohol was not believed to have been a factor. All involved in the accident were wearing a seat belt except for Elizabeth Baldwin.
Hill City police and the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office assisted at the scene.
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
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