North Dakota
Report says proposed dairy operation will impact groundwater near Abercrombie
ABERCROMBIE, N.D. — A private study says the
proposed dairy cattle operation near Abercrombie
poses serious risks to the area’s ground and surface water.
David Erickson, a principal hydrologist with Water and Environmental Technologies, a consulting firm with offices in Montana and Wyoming, recently finished a study of the proposal and its potential impacts on groundwater near a proposed 12,500-head dairy operation by Riverview Farms, a Morris, Minnesota-based dairy corporation.
The Dakota Resource Council and residents of Abercrombie are asking the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality to consider the study report and include it as part of the permit application submitted by Riverview Farms.
Riverview Farms hopes to build a $90 million facility just south of Abercrombie in Richland County.
It is also proposing a $180 million, 25,000-head operation southeast of Hillsboro
in Traill County. The two proposals would quadruple the number of dairy cattle in North Dakota, which the North Dakota Department of Agriculture estimates at just 10,000 cows across 24 dairy operations.
The facility would be 1.4 miles from the Wild Rice River and 1.8 miles from the Red River, on top of the Wahpeton Buried Valley Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to 28 domestic wells within a two-mile radius, as well as the communities of Abercrombie, Wahpeton and Breckenridge, Minnesota.
“By granting this permit, North Dakota is permitting and encouraging the polluting of thousands of acres around the proposed Abercrombie Dairy,” Erickson said in the report.
Riverview officials could not be reached for comment on the report.
Erickson studied Riverview’s permit application and identified contaminants commonly found in dairy lagoons, such as nitrates, hormones, antibiotics and pesticides that also have been found in drinking water wells near other cattle facilities in Washington, Wisconsin and California.
“The current permit application for the Abercrombie Dairy fails to protect North Dakota’s surface water due to insufficient requirements for manure application locations, timing and methods,” said Erickson in the report. “This facility directly threatens the Red River, the Wild Rice River and Antelope Creek.”
Erickson said that a proposed 24-foot-deep, clay-lined lagoon that can hold 106.7 million gallons of manure each year is compliant with North Dakota livestock regulations, however, the regulations do not require monitoring wells to detect potential leakage. Erickson said he has studied lagoon seepage since 1988 and based on his experience and other research, he expects the two lagoons will leak much more than the less than half-inch of wastewater leakage projected by Riverview’s permit.
“Given that the water table sits just two feet below the lagoon bottom, the 22 inches of annual seepage will contaminate the water table in just over a year,” Erickson said in his report.
Erickson counted fields that would receive some of the manure as fertilizer and 42 of the fields have direct connections to tributaries, 10 border Antelope Creek, 15 border the Wild Rice River and three are adjacent to the Red River.
“Acute and immediate impacts to water quality will result from application of manure in the volume and locations described in the permit,” Erickson said.
He also noted that residents will likely have to contend with other side effects of applying the manure produced by the dairy operation to nearby fields.
“The odor from the application process is overwhelming and rancid for days after the application regardless of the application method,” Erickson said. “Nearby residents will have to contend with rancid odors, spills and releases on the roadways from hauling, additional manure truck traffic and routine misapplication by farm personnel.”
Riverview staff have said the facilities will create jobs, expecting to employ 45 people, many of whom would be internal hires. The company expects the farm would increase job opportunities for other vocations, such as truck drivers and manure applicators.
Residents, who have called themselves Abercrombie Citizens for Responsible Growth, along with the Dakota Resource Council,
have been meeting regularly since this fall
to discuss and voice concerns about what the operation would do the water supple and quality of live in and around the town of about 261 people. They have requested the state Department of Environmental Quality address the concerns and they have formally requested a public meeting to review the findings.
Abercrombie Citizens for Responsible Growth said the community plans to meet once again at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 10, at the community center.
FARGO, N.D. (KELO) — The Sioux Falls Stampede staved off elimination with a 2-1 overtime win over the Fargo Force in game four of the USHL Western Conference Finals Saturday night.
Thomas Zocco scored the game-winner 12 minutes into the extra period. Arseni Marchenko put Fargo on the board first in the first period. Noah Mannausau tied the game for the Herd in the second period.
Sioux Falls outshot Fargo 53-49, including 9-5 in overtime. Linards Feldbergs made 48 saves.
Three of the four games of the series have gone to overtime. The winner-take-all game five is Tuesday at the Premier Center.
New ballot measure guide to be mailed to North Dakota voters ahead of election
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BISMARCK (North Dakota Monitor) — A federal district court judge indicated he will nullify a nearly $28 million judgment against the federal government related to costs North Dakota incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests so the parties can reach a settlement.
North Dakota is still set to receive a payment Attorney General Drew Wrigley described as satisfactory, but attorneys would not disclose the amount during a Friday hearing.
Attorneys for the United States and North Dakota said the settlement would allow the parties to avoid litigating the case in appeals court,putting the nearly seven-year-old lawsuit to rest.
“We’re hoping we really don’t need to fight any further,” Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during the hearing.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, concerns demonstrations against the construction of the crude oil pipeline, also known as DAPL, that took place in rural south-central North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
North Dakota claims the federal government caused the protests to grow in size and intensity by unlawfully allowing demonstrators to camp on federal land. The state says it had to pay millions of dollars on policing and cleaning up the encampments as a result. The United States denies the state’s allegations.
North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor in April 2025 sided with the state and ordered the executive branch to pay North Dakota the $28 million sum, a decision the U.S. Department of Justice later appealed to the 8th Circuit.
If the settlement moves forward, North Dakota would receive a “substantial monetary payment” from the United States, attorneys said Friday. As a condition of the agreement, the Department of Justice wants Traynor’s judgment and three other orders in which he ruled against the United States to be voided. That includes the court’s 120-page ruling from April 2025.
Both parties said Friday that having the rulings nullified wouldn’t have a significant negative impact on the public, since the documents could still be cited even if they no longer hold the weight of court orders.
At the same time, Guynn said the Department of Justice wants the orders vacated because it doesn’t want the legal conclusions Traynor made to influence the outcome of future lawsuits.
“The downstream consequences of keeping these on the books is troublesome for the United States,” he said during the hearing. If Traynor does not agree to axe the rulings, the United States would likely no longer be willing to settle and move forward with its appeal instead, Guynn added.
Traynor’s orders make findings about the federal government’s responsibility under the Federal Tort Claims Act — the law North Dakota filed the suit under — which the state noted previously in court filings “could have utility holding the federal government to account” in the future.
Still, attorneys for the state said they believe this trade-off is outweighed by the time and money the public would save by not going through the appeals process. North Dakota would also avoid the risk of having Traynor’s judgment overturned by higher courts.
Wrigley said the settlement will be made public once it’s finalized.
The United States’ appeal of Traynor’s decision has been on hold since last summer, when the state and federal government informed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals they had started settlement negotiations and wished to pause the case.
The 8th Circuit will have to first send the case back to Traynor before he could grant the parties’ requests.
The case went to trial in Bismarck in early 2024. During the four-week trial, the court heard from witnesses including former governors Doug Burgum and Jack Dalrymple, Native activists, federal officials and law enforcement.
The Dakota Access Pipeline carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. It crosses the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which prompted the tribe to begin protesting the pipeline on the grounds that it poses a threat to its water supply and sovereignty.
North Dakota’s lawsuit originally requested $38 million in damages from the federal government. Traynor ordered the executive branch to pay $28 million since the U.S. Department of Justice previously gave the state $10 million as compensation for costs it spent related to the protests.
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