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ELTOPIA -- Although a 30,000-head feedlot in rural Franklin County is near completion, nearby farmers are continuing to challenge it.
Easterday Ranches Inc., one of the Northwest's largest feedlot operators, is constructing a feedlot on 100 acres of its 960-acre property near Eltopia, about 25 miles northeast of Pasco.
Five Corners Family Farmers, a group of property owners near the feedlot, has appealed Easterday Ranches' air quality permit and asked the state Pollution Control Hearings Board to halt construction on the $10.5 million project until the appeal is decided.
The appeal isn't scheduled to be heard until July, said Karen Lindholdt, a Spokane attorney representing Five Corners Family Farmers.
Cody Easterday of Easterday Ranches Inc. said the appeal is just another move by four individuals to try to stop the project. They have challenged everything they can, he said.
Five Corners Family Farmers, along with environmental groups Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Sierra Club, filed suit in July over Easterday Ranches' plan to use water from a well exempt from a state water permit. The suit is pending in Franklin County Superior Court.
Easterday Ranches has received all necessary permits to construct and operate a feedlot, Easterday said.
Easterday said the company has gone above and beyond state standards.
"It's going to be a state-of-the-art facility," he said.
Easterday Ranches is using the latest technology to control feedlot emissions, he said.
Five Corner Family Farmers' appeal centers around concerns over emissions of ammonia and other pollutants, according to documents filed with the state Pollution Control Hearings Board.
"Society and scientists now understand the adverse health impacts associated with exposure to ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter and methane ... (from) feedlots," Lindholdt said.
In documents filed with the hearings board, Scott Collin, a member of Five Corners Family Farmers, said the feedlot is already burdensome to neighbors.
"Cumulative fumes and odors permeate our home and ranches already," he said. "Even now, before construction, the smells can be overpowering."
His group is arguing the state shouldn't have let Easterday Ranches meet a lower air quality standard for ammonia than the current one.
After the Easterday permit was issued, the department lowered the level of safe exposure from 100 to 70 micrograms per cubic meter within a 24-hour period, Lindholdt said. But the process for changing the standards started in June 2006, so the new standards should prevail, she said.
In a brief to the hearings board, Crane Bergdahl, the Pasco attorney representing Easterday, said, "There is only one claimed irreparable harm in this appeal: excessive ammonia emissions beyond adopted standards. That is just not going to happen."
With 26,000 head of cattle expected this summer, the ammonia emissions would be only 60 percent of the acceptable limits, Bergdahl said in the brief.
Easterday said the feedlot will be operational within 60 days.
Granting a stay of construction until the hearings board decides on the appeal would cause harm, Bergdahl said.
"Easterday has expended millions of dollars and has contracted and committed for millions more," he said in the brief. "They have commitments with contractors, suppliers, materials and equipment on order, cattle to be brought to the new feed yard and commitments for crops to be raised and feed to be purchased."
Five Corners Family Farmers also claims Easterday Ranches has violated its air quality permit.
Lindholdt said the permit requires that no more than 14 acres be disturbed at one time during construction, and as construction proceeds, the disturbed area is supposed to be covered with straw mulch.
Those rules have not been followed, Lindholdt said.
In addition, Easterday Ranches is not using off-site water to control dust, she said.
Cody Easterday called those claims "complete lies."
The company is complying with all permit requirements, he said. Two water trucks and a sprinkler system are used throughout the day to prevent dust.
All that Five Corners Family Farmers really can claim is that the Department of Ecology erred in issuing the permit, Easterday said.
"We've done our scientific work," he said. "We are 100 percent confident that there is no issue at all."
The feedlot will benefit the area economically, Easterday said.
In addition to employing 40 people full time, it will also buy $20 million in feed from area suppliers annually.
-- Kristi Pihl: 509-582-1512; kpihl@tricityherald.com
