CASS COUNTY, Neb. (WOWT) – The owner of controversial
compost site southwest of Omaha
claims the smell is going away, but neighbors strongly disagree and the dispute has Cass County Commissioners demanding answers.
The piles of composting materials have dwindled at the property, but that’s because it’s been spread onto nearby fields.
“It causes your eyes and throat to burn,” said neighbor Anke Horacek. “It’s like when you get a strong ammonia smell that hits you. That’s what it smells like.”
The fields are covered with what the landowner — Andy Harpeneau of Black Elk Farms — describes as “corn milling,” and his attorney tells the Cass County board that
complaints haven’t been ignored.
“We invite people to have a discussion and it’s always this kind of conspiracy here that he’s trying to endanger the lives of people around him and that’s not true,” said Harpeneau’s attorney, Brent Meyer. “He’s just trying to use organic fertilizer for his property.”
Harpeneau stayed in the background at the commissioner’s meeting Tuesday, but Cass County Attorney Chris Perrone still called him out.
“It’s very hard for this board to ignore the fact that you don’t care what [your neighbors] say,” said Perrone. “Is it fair to say you wouldn’t want to live there?”
“No,” Harpeneau replied. “It’s not fair to say I wouldn’t want to live there.”
And Harpeneau says he works the land everyday, but not in a way others say he should. While he contends that spreading corn milling compost on his field is reducing the smell, neighbors and the county board say that’s not enough and the only sure way to eliminate that odor nuisance is to disk that material into the ground.
His attorney objects.
“Disking on a cover crop that’s already been planted and growing would destroy the cover crop and is an unreasonable request,” Meyer said.
But Cass County Board Chairman Alex DeGarmo says it’s reasonable to demand the landowner be a good neighbor.
“Neighbors have been dealing with this smell for a long time,” DeGarmo said. “We’ve been trying to resolve it, we’ve sent multiple letters of violation, and we just want to get this resolved.”
Harpeneau told the board he stopped taking the corn milling material weeks ago. Due to a non-disclosure agreement with the producer of that material, he can’t reveal everything that’s in it.
Cass County Commissioners will meet in an executive session early next month to decide if any action should be taken against Black Elk Farm or its owner.
Last summer
,
Harpenau claims none of the material on his property came from the
AltEn plant in Mead
that had been declared a contamination cleanup site.
