"The state’s environmental agency has the authority to investigate and issue fines for illegal spills, but lacks sufficient staff and resources."
"Over half a century ago, Larry Stone moved to northeast Iowa, drawn by the abundant wildlife and the crisp, spring-fed streams that carve through rocky bluffs. More than half a century later, those waterways have increasingly come under threat.
In 2017, a 10,000-head cattle feedlot was built in a nearby town at the headwaters of Bloody Run Creek after a protracted battle with citizen and environmental groups. Ever since, Stone has spent what he estimates to be hundreds of hours focusing on the Supreme Beef LLC facility and its effect on one of Iowa’s “outstanding waterways.”
In October, Stone drove by the operation and saw what appeared to be manure resting atop the surface of a nearby field. He sent a photo to a friend and fellow northeast Iowa resident, who then sent the picture and a complaint to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
The department wrote back, telling them it was “legally permissible” for the livestock facility to apply manure to the surface of fields without incorporating it, so long as the method was in Supreme Beef’s nutrient management plan—a form required by the state for dictating how and where manure is distributed — and had been signed off on by the plan’s reviewers."
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