BROWNSTOWN — A Brownstown man’s plans to build a confined animal feeding operation for finishing swine cleared the first of two local hurdles Tuesday night.
“I chose this site because it was the farthest from others,” Grant VonDielingen told members of the county Plan Commission during their meeting at the courthouse annex.
If eventually approved by the county Board of Zoning Appeals as well as the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the facility would be built on land VonDielingen’s family owns off U.S. 50 east of Brownstown. VonDielingen said he plans to live nearby the rest of his life.
VonDielingen said he plans an 81-by-431-foot building with four rooms, housing 1,000 head of hogs in each room.
A manure pit that can hold 500 days worth of manure will be built, and a berm would have to be built on the southeast side of the pit to keepmanure from reaching Hough Creek if an accident should happen, VonDielingen said.
In answer to a question from commission member Leon Pottschmidt, VonDielingen said the operation is the same as others built in the county in recent years, and it is affiliated with Jackson-Jennings Co-op.
VonDielingen gave a detailed description of the 4,000-head operation, including how much manure it will produce each year and what will happen to that manure.
“ It will produce 750,000 gallons (of manure) annually, and I plan to land apply it,” VonDielingen said. “We plan to knife it into the ground. It will be injected to minimize runoff.”
He said six truckloads of hogs would be hauled to the facility each year, one load of hogs would leave each week and there would be about 100 loads of feed from local farmers brought in each year.
Copyright © 2024 The Tribune