The attack of the mega-farm!

A local dairy proposed building the largest herd of cows in the entire state of Minnesota right here in my county — a massive enterprise that would suck our aquifer dry and turn the water into giant stinking fecal pools that will breed more flies. Much of the local population is opposed, and Riverview Dairy has never made a case for why we need so much milk. I was motivated to attend a packed meeting of Stevens County officials where they were considering giving the dairy a permit.

The outcome of the meeting was that the county officials did not issue a permit, but adjourned to think about it. At the time, I made a prophecy.

In the end, a small group of old white men, the planning commission, will retreat into a meeting room and make the decision, and I predict that they will decide that Riverview doesn’t need any more studies of their environmental impact. The county has a total population of 10,000, and this one dairy operation will be pumping out waste equivalent to the output of a city of 750,00 people, but we’ll just let them do their thing and then find out the consequences. Short-sightedness will win again.

Am I a true prophet? The Land Stewardship Project shares the latest news.

On Tuesday, Sept. 1, Stevens County officials approved Riverview’s conditional use permit for the proposed West River Dairy expansion near Morris. This decision largely clears the way for what will become the largest concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Minnesota history. Once completed, this 18,855-cow facility will be more than 60 times the size of the average Minnesota dairy.

The county’s approval comes after farmers and other rural residents expressed deep concerns over the past several months about the potential environmental and economic impacts of this facility. More than 1,400 people submitted official public comments about West River Dairy to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), and 1,140 people signed LSP’s petition calling for a full environmental impact statement (EIS).

Despite deep community concerns regarding incomplete local water data, massive water usage (319 million gallons per year), and 250 million gallons of liquid manure storage near impaired waterways, local officials declined to impose protective groundwater conditions. We are deeply disappointed in the county commissioners’ decision.

I have a gift.

I’m in show business!

This past weekend, I was trained in the movie business. Our local theater is run as a co-op, I’m a member of the board, and I bravely volunteered to assist in occasionally assisting in running the theater. This meant going in to operate the projector and help with the concessions. Easy, right? Push a few buttons, relieve some of our helpful volunteers, no sweat.

Except it turns out to be a non-trivial exercise. The theater is an old building that has been clumsily revamped to handle a modern movie projection system. The first step is running around to various closets and hidey-holes to flip circuit breakers on, power up various computers and devices, gather up a pair of cash boxes and count money and deliver them to the ticket booth and concessions, and turn on the two projectors, and wait. These are run by old computers that take ages to start up and feature antique Windows software to run everything.

The projector software really does everything for you. It shows all the ads and movies on a tight schedule, and once it’s running you can just ignore the projection until the movie is done. That sounds great, but it’s more like the autopilot on a private plane. It does the job it’s designed to do, but before you can push the button to switch on the autopilot, you still have to do all the pre-flight checks and turn on the engine and get the plane down the runway and into the air. It’s much more complicated than I imagined.

So I’ve gone through the procedure once — it wasn’t enough. I’m going to have to do more run throughs under supervision before I can fly solo.

I didn’t have a chance to watch the movies. I was able to catch the end of The Bride, which was confusing and loud. The star of the weekend was Super Mario Galaxy, which was packing the house — we had a record attendance. I did learn the most of the money made is from concessions, which I’ll have to learn how to do next. This is the first time in my entire life that I’ve worked in retail, and I’m mystified by it.

But the glamor!

A good protest

Joan Baez! Bruce Springsteen! Jane Fonda! Tom Morello! That was some of the entertainment at the massive St Paul No Kings protest yesterday. I’ve heard estimates as high as 100,000 in attendance. Unfortunately, Ted Nugent couldn’t make it. We couldn’t make it either, that was a 3 hour drive away from us.

I attended the rally in Morris. (Forgive the terrible photo.)

It wasn’t organized in a way that lends itself to grand panoramic photos. We didn’t march — we we were spread out around a couple of major intersections in town. About 150 people showed up, a good number for our small town.

I then drove out to an even smaller town: Cyrus, Minnesota, population 300.

Between 30 and 40 people were waving signs at that one.

Our numbers look tiny compared to the huge crowds in the big cities, but what was most heartening was the response. Cars were driving by, and I did see one guy flip us off, but mostly we got positive affirmations, with drivers waving at us or honking their horns. At times it was just one long continuous ‘beep beep’ as car after car saluted us.

I think maybe most of the country is fed up with Mr Trump and his idiot lackeys.

We did have some conversations about the point of all this, since it wasn’t going to lead to direct change. People had different answers: one was to show other people that they aren’t alone, another was to foster organization, another was to just piss off MAGA. All good answers, I think, so we’ll have to keep it up. I also learned that there is a weekly demonstration in Morris, every Tuesday at 4:30 on 5th and Atlantic…so I’ll have to try to make it to some of those.

It’s blizzard time!

We woke up this morning to the moaning of the wind, and I decided to just stay in bed a bit longer. We’ve got a long day ahead of us in which we won’t be stepping outside our door today.

A developing potent winter storm over the Central Plains this morning will become much stronger as it moves toward the Great Lakes through Monday morning. Snow will develop over western Minnesota near sunrise, with a rain/snow mix developing farther east. The rain/snow mix across eastern Minnesota and Wisconsin will quickly turn to snow later this morning as temperatures drop during the daylight hours. Steady snow will continue through early Monday morning. Accumulations of 6 to 10 inches are forecast across eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, with amounts tapering off to a few inches across far western Minnesota. In addition, strong northwest winds gusting to 45 to 55 mph are expected by this evening, leading to blizzard conditions in open areas of central and southern Minnesota through early Monday morning.

A Blizzard Warning is in effect in a corridor from Morris and Long Prairie, south to Granite Falls and the far southwestern Twin Cities metro, to the Mankato and Albert Lea areas. A Winter Storm Warning is in effect for the rest of eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

Travel conditions will become dangerous later today through early Monday morning. Alternative travel plans should be considered.

I did look out the window — haze, swirling snowflakes, trees trembling in the wind — and closed the blinds again. Yesterday I saw rabbits hopping about nibbling on the food my wife left out for them; no rabbits today. Fat little fluffy birds are made of sterner stuff and are fighting over bird seed.

Watch the skies!

In class today, I was telling students what to expect on the big genetics exam on Wednesday. I got an unexpected question: “What if we get 6-12 inches of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday?” I thought they were teasing me, no way I have to worry about that, look at the skies outside right now!

They weren’t joking.

Another potent Spring Storm is on tap to arrive on Tuesday lasting into Wednesday with heavy snow expected for much of central Minnesota. The system will arrive in western Minnesota by Tuesday morning with a band of heavy snow expected to begin by the afternoon continuing overnight as the system pushes eastwards. Snow quality is expected to be on the heavier, slushier side as snow ratios favor below 10 to 1. An influx of mid level warm air could also lead to a wintry mix at times, with widespread rain to the south of the main band of snowfall. Snow will diminish by Wednesday afternoon as the system continues into the Great Lakes region. A broad area of 6 or more inches of snow is expected for parts of central Minnesota, with high end amounts potentially reaching the double digits. Ice accumulations should generally remain a glaze to a few hundredths at the most.

How dare Midwestern skies disrupt my curriculum! If it’s really bad, I’ll have to postpone my exam to Monday, which makes a mess of my plans, but I do want my students to survive winter. Even if it’s winter in April.

I did my civic duty

I spent the last several hours at the city council meeting for Morris, Minnesota, along with a huge mob of other Morris residents. The object of our political activism was a park, Morris’s East Side Park, which is kind of like the Central Park of our small town. It’s only 2 acres, containing a band shell, lots of trees, grass, picnic tables, and in one corner, some playground equipment. It’s a pleasant little place where lots of families play and where one citizen likes to look for spiders.

A local business, Superior Industries and West-Mor, enthusiastically and generously made plans to invest $2 million into turning Eastside Park into a destination park, paving over one bit of it to make a parking lot, building a massive and rather garish child’s playground paved over with poured-in-place rubbery polymer, and chopping down about 16 of the trees. One problem: they didn’t bother to tell us residents until about a month ago, although city council knew about it before we did.

Many of us descended on the council meeting tonight, talking for hours, the overwhelming majority of us presenting objections. We weren’t given enough time to review the proposal, it had been rushed through the council without going through the usual protocols, this was going to change the character of the park, there were other locations that would be more suitable, the location was far too small, etc.

One weird thing is that the proponents of the park were now emphasizing that it was going to be an inclusive park with handicap access. No one is against inclusion, and I failed to see what was particularly inclusive about a climbing structure and swing sets and slides, and they didn’t say what was more inclusive about it than the existing park, but OK.

The arguments didn’t matter. The council had already made up their minds. They ignored the will of the people and voted to approved the plastic monstrosity that will replace the grass and trees in the park.

I shouldn’t have bothered.

The biggest disappointment of living in Morris

I have a busy weekend ahead of me, and I got an early start this morning. Up early, graded an exam, got the results posted, and then I decided to reward myself by taking a nice walk downtown to the coffee shop.

It was closed.

There are three coffeeshops in Morris. One is in the middle of the grocery store, which gets enough of my money as it is, and doesn’t exactly have the desired coffeeshop ambience. The other two are owned by local churches. They have limited hours on Saturday, and are closed on Sundays. A college town where the coffeeshops are closed on Sundays! At least the bars are open, so you can drink a different beverage.

None of them cater to students anyway. I see a few faculty now and then, and rarely an occasional student at the coffeeshop I frequent, but more generally they’re marketing to old people.

An outpost of reason in a county of conservatives

That’s my town!

Unfortunately, they cropped out the university, which would be to the left of the top of the photo. I say unfortunately, because it comes from an article that’s all about how the University of Minnesota Morris’s Green Initiative has benefited the entire region.

The farm town of the future is visible long before you reach the city limits, thanks to a pair of wind turbines rising as high as the Statue of Liberty above the flat terrain. They pump cheap electricity into the local grid, providing the energy to make carbon-neutral fertilizer. Closer in, cows graze next to solar panels that provide them with shade. A county-wide compost operation disposes of food and agricultural waste, electric buses take kids to school, the public library relies on geothermal heating and even a city-owned liquor store has rooftop solar panels. (The shop motto: “We chill your beer with the sun.”)

Where is this environmental Nirvana that’s checking off so many boxes on the climate warrior’s wish list? Denmark? Germany? Northern California? No, it’s Morris, Minn., population 5,206, a conservative prairie community in a conservative rural county that favored Donald Trump by 22 points in the 2020 presidential election.

It’s fair to say that environmental and climate concerns have never been front of mind when it comes to votes and policies in Morris. But residents will talk all day long about rural self-sufficiency, high energy and fuel costs, saving tax dollars and eliminating costly inefficiency and waste. When Troy Goodnough, the director of sustainability at the local campus of the University of Minnesota, arrived more than 15 years ago and asked how he could help address those economic concerns, a partnership emerged that has made Morris one of the most sustainable farm towns in America—even though that was never the town’s goal.

They know that Trump hates wind turbines, but it’s all about the money.

Goodnough’s bet was that the common-sense, cost-saving goals the farmers prized could lead them to choices that also happened to be good for the environment. But could it really be as simple as changing the terms of that conversation? Yes, says Blaine Hill, the recently retired city manager who helped make it happen. “We never made it about climate. We just did it because it makes sense. And the more we did, the more we wanted to do.”

The result has been dubbed “the Morris Model” by its participants: the town, the school district, Stevens County and the campus of 1,500 students. They are making their data and blueprints available to other communities interested in trying something similar. Thirteen other towns in Minnesota are at various stages of adapting Morris Model projects. The one furthest along is spearheaded by the city of Fergus Falls, with the help of a regional planning nonprofit. They are organizing 10 other rural towns into a “solar cohort” to increase purchasing power and simplify the complex grant process to get state and federal aid for these efforts.
…
Goodnough sensed an opening. The Morris city government had a tight budget, and its high electric bills were a sore spot. The university, meanwhile, had just realized substantial savings by converting old lighting on campus to modern LEDs. Goodnough offered to help the city do the same, including help with tapping into Department of Energy funds to offset the upfront costs. The conversion ended up saving the city $80,000 a year—a significant windfall for a small town. Soon, the Morris town elders came to the university to ask, “What’s next?”

The larger community might be conservative, but it’s the liberals and progressives of the university that got it all started. You’re welcome, Republicans.