Composting odors drive complaints at Cass County meeting

PLATTSMOUTH, Nebraska – Neighbors to a compost operation south of Ashland filled a courthouse meeting room Tuesday to complain about the putrid odors and swarms of flies from the operation and a lack of progress to mitigate them.

“It’s a living hell,” one neighbor, Jeff Horacek, told members of the Cass County Board.

He and other neighbors said they could no longer play outdoors with kids or take meals on outside decks due to the odor, which they compared to a decomposing corpse and said was as pungent as a skunk.

Owner acknowledges smell

The operator of the composting operation, Black Elk Farms, located along Interstate 80 just southwest of 262nd Road, acknowledged that the smell was a problem, but that he was “learning a lesson the hard way” about odors created by composting waste grain he was paid to take from ethanol plants.

Operator Andy Harpenau said problems should soon be over at the operation, which was launched last summer.

“We’re not bringing in any more material,,” Harpenau told board members. “We need to spread it (on farm fields) and that will end the odors.”

He added that he does not take waste grain from the controversial and now closed AltEn Ethanol Plant in Mead.

Promises of relief brought some grumbling and some shaking of heads from the neighbors who packed the room used for Cass County Board meetings.

The board scheduled a public hearing Tuesday after hearing persistent complaints from nearby residents about the composting operation and unsuccessful attempts by county officials to resolve the complaints.

About a dozen neighbors testified about the horrible smells and concerns about the potential for contaminating a nearby creek and drinking water.

One board member, Duane Murdoch, said he’d been assured that the compost would be spread and the odors resolved by now, but that hasn’t happened.

Harpenau said equipment problems and bad weather had delayed his efforts, adding that he has four other compost operations to attend to. Attempts to quell the smell by mixing the compost with mulch, he added, had been unsuccessful.

Murdoch, as well as Cass County Zoning Administrator Mike Jensen both rejected those explanations.

Jensen, who issued an order last year to clean up the mess, said there’s much more compost on Harpenau’s property than could reasonably be applied to the crop fields there.

Frustrations boil

A reporter visited the farm Tuesday evening. Putrid odors were evident from a nearby gravel road, as was evidence that the compost had been spread on much of an adjacent field and its green cover crop. Cover crops and using less commercial fertilizer and pesticides are part of “regenerative agriculture,” which Harpenau maintained is how he is using the compost.

Tempers rose briefly during the public hearing when Horacek shouted, “You’re a liar!” at Harpenau after the compost operator said he wasn’t taking any new materials.

Emotions cooled quickly when County Board Chairman Alex DeGarmo warned that threatening behavior would not be tolerated and that offenders would be removed by sheriff’s deputies.

Cass County Attorney Chris Perrone said that the county could sue to end the nuisance or fine Harpenau. No conditional use permit was required to do the composting, so there is no permit that the county could rescind.

The board took no action after hearing from neighbors.