Star Tribune
Dairy farm loses bid at MN appeals court to add thousands of cows
Judge Slieter noted that a variance can be denied if the applicants seek a variance for “economic considerations alone.”
“The record supports the finding that the variance application was made for economic reasons alone,” Slieter wrote.
Southeastern Minnesota has constituted the frontlines of an ongoing debate about how to manage hazardous nitrates, often produced by farm runoff, in sensitive geographies. In 2023, the EPA estimated nearly 10,000 people in the region had water supplies contaminated by high amounts of nitrate. Simultaneously, economic forces pressure farms to grow and compete, with increasingly common mega-dairies to the west and south.
A number of state farm and environmental groups had intervened in the case, including associations for milk, beef, and pork producers, as well as the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation.
Amanda Vohs, staff attorney for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, cheered the ruling, saying the “Court of Appeals affirmed, once again, that Winona County has the right to determine how best to balance the economic interests of its growing agricultural sector with the community’s right to safe drinking water.”
“[That young demographic] is everything,” said Nelson. “In today’s world, it’s all about convenience … and Cane’s offers that.”
Marcus Maddalena-Gill, Stella Maddalena-Gill, 9, Levi Maddalena-Gill, 10, Tania Maddalena-Gill, and Tony Maddalena-Gill, 12, left to right, eat at Raising Cane’s in Apple Valley on Nov. 7. (Ayrton Breckenridge/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
As Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz was crisscrossing the country in a bid to win the White House, fellow Minnesotan Sen. Tina Smith was working right below the presidential ticket to try to hold Democrats’ slim majority in the U.S. Senate.
But now that the elections are over, so is Smith’s time as vice chair of the committee, a role in which she was responsible for helping to fundraise for the committee and guide its political strategy.
“I’m so glad that I had a chance to do it. It was really worthwhile, I think in an election year that clearly was a disappointment for Democrats, the Senate races were a bright spot,” she said in an interview from her Capitol Hill office.
While Senate Democrats lost the majority and return to the minority with 47 members, Smith applauds Democrats for outperforming the top of the ticket in some parts of the country. Though not all of these Democratic candidates won, these small victories happened in Montana, Arizona, Ohio and Wisconsin as well as in Minnesota, where Sen. Amy Klobuchar won a fourth term.
Smith is up for re-election in 2026 and when asked whether she’s fully committed to running again, replied, “that’s my plan.” She was first appointed to the Senate in 2017 by then-Gov. Mark Dayton and elected to her seat in 2020.
With Peters set to depart the DSCC chairman post, Smith said she doesn’t have any plans to vie for the top job herself. “I didn’t want to be chair in 2024 and I don’t want to be chair in 2026,” she said.
She wouldn’t say whether she thinks Democrats could have performed better if President Joe Biden would have gotten out of the race earlier, arguing it was a “really complicated election.” But she does think Gov. Tim Walz was a strong running mate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
A young mother who owned a bakery and a 2024 graduate driving to attend college classes lost their lives in back-to-back crashes.
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