For just about 5 years, citizens and assets house owners within the northwest Wisconsin the town of Industry Lake have clashed with a developer of a proposed $20 million pig farm. The swine breeding operation, referred to as Cumberland LLC, will be the state’s greatest. Locals have discovered little convenience in solutions to their questions on how the farm would affect their high quality of lifestyles.
his article was once first printed via Wisconsin Watch. It’s the second one tale in a three-part sequence known as Hogtied, which examines the political, regulatory and financial forces shaping an offer to construct the state’s greatest pig farm.
He says he’s an open e-book.
He calls himself a author.
“Now not a main points individual in any respect!” his LinkedIn profile announces. “The most productive compliments to me is operating round detailed other people. I create a venture and wish them to finish it.”
Jeff Sauer travels the rustic, bringing tidings of pigs.
In January 2019, Sauer got here to Industry Lake, Wisconsin, with a plan in his pocket. He sought to ascertain the area’s first huge swine breeding farm, often referred to as a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO. For that, he required farmland and loads of it.
The $20 million venture, referred to as Cumberland LLC, can have housed greater than 26,000 hogs — the state’s largest sow operation. Given the possibility of the large farm to change into lifestyles in Burnett County, citizens and assets house owners raised a gauntlet of questions: Who would personal and perform the ability? Would it not be neatly run? Who may the neighborhood dangle responsible if it wasn’t?
They discovered little convenience within the solutions.
Fighters found out Cumberland’s house owners sought to buy fields from Industry Lake’s then chairman, Jim Melin. A number of sued to take away Melin from place of job, accusing the native reputable of conflicts of pastime. From testimony amassed all over litigation, the plaintiffs believed they might identify Sauer falsely represented himself as an organization proprietor when he submitted a CAFO software. They recommended the state to reject it.
Sauer, who has since amassed infractions in industry dealings in any other Wisconsin neighborhood, has sown mistrust in Industry Lake amongst a public already cautious of enormous farm animals farming. Critics accused him of seeking to web site the swine facility, sentiment be damned.
Fighters have requested whether or not the extent of diligence the corporate has invested into the hog farm’s making plans and neighborhood members of the family foreshadows a loss of care and transparency in operations. Including to their unease is state regulators’ reliance upon self-monitoring and neighborhood watchdogging to safeguard the surroundings from agricultural air pollution.
In the meantime, Cumberland’s absentee house owners dangle minimum culpability within the tournament of wear and tear as a result of they shaped a restricted legal responsibility corporate that will personal the ability — a commonplace trade apply.
Sauer rejected the accusations and maintains he hasn’t ever lied. In reality, Sauer stated, he now’s the only proprietor of all the venture.
That the ability could be run poorly is preposterous, he stated. “What would make you suppose that we’d put an funding of that magnitude in after which make it seem like trash?” Sauer advised Wisconsin Watch.
He considers himself, and others within the native agriculture neighborhood, the sufferers of “egocentric” and “silly” “crazies” and a opposed press.
“I guess you any cash that your newsletter that you just’re in need of to write down proper right here for this tale is to slam me another time — to slam Cumberland LLC,” Sauer stated. “Have you ever heard one uplifting tale about this entire factor since it all started?”
In search of a farmer’s sympathy
Cumberland’s builders expected controversy from the beginning, in particular over doable smell and air pollution. They chalked it as much as neighborhood resistance to modify.
Sauer filed a initial CAFO software with the state in early 2019 after scoping out homes within the Industry Lake space for months.
“The important thing to our puzzle is a collaborating farmer,” he later defined.
Sauer known one in Erik Melin, 38, Jim Melin’s son. Erik, who was once taking on his circle of relatives’s farming industry, would acquire manure from Cumberland to fertilize fields he owns and rents.
In April 2019, a reporter from the world’s newspaper, the Inter-County Chief, realized of the proposal and contacted Erik for an interview. Erik texted Sauer in a while after and recommended Sauer do the speaking.
“We would possibly wish to wait in this alternative for some time,” Sauer answered, asking Erik to carry off till he may trainer him. “Media can distort what you might be implying and we don’t need that.”
Sauer had reason why to imagine ready to remark was once for the most efficient. Public sentiment towards CAFOs most often sours, he stated.
“It all the time does.”
Jeff Sauer speaks in a 2019 interview with “Right here & Now.” He arrived in Industry Lake in 2019 with a plan to ascertain Wisconsin’s greatest pig farm. (Credit score: PBS Wisconsin)
Industry Lake meets the businessman
Sauer unveiled his imaginative and prescient to Industry Lake neighborhood participants the former January at a the town board assembly, however his presentation was once indexed below a obscure time table heading, and few participants of the general public seemed.
Nonetheless, phrase unfold.
The board revisited the subject at Industry Lake’s annual assembly in April. The Inter-County Chief had defined main points of the Melin sale yesterday, and greater than 120 other people overflowed the historical the town corridor for a per thirty days assembly that typically attracts only a handful or two.
Belongings house owners sought solutions from Sauer within the type of clinical knowledge, contingency plans and fiscal assurances.
They were given one thing else.
“I’d like to understand who he’s,” stated Industry Lake resident Howard Pahl, 71, on the assembly’s get started.
“Smartly, I’ve been in a large number of submit places of work below sought after posters,” Sauer opened.
The group raucously laughed.
Sauer offered himself as a farmer from Thorp, Wisconsin, and a part-owner of a dairy and hog operation, unrelated to Cumberland.
He advertised the proposed swine farm’s benefits for Industry Lake: It might supply its corn in the community, create about two dozen new jobs and every year generate $5 million in financial job.
“Can I interrupt you for a 2nd?” stated native resident Dean Moody. “You’re now not telling us who you might be.”
In 1966 Sauer moved along with his 5 siblings to Thorp, the place their father, Arthur, farmed greater than 1,000 acres for 30 years. Sauer says he concluded his formal training with the 8th grade, then attended the varsity of “exhausting knocks” to be informed building.
Now 57, he’s married, via his account, to a girl who doesn’t like hogs. In August 2019, Sauer was once a father of 7, who ranged in age from 9 to 35.
He is aware of tips on how to practice insecticides and herbicides. The co-owner of the veterinary corporate with whom Sauer deliberate Cumberland describes him as a “very, very suave man” in building and development apparatus.
Sauer is also entrepreneurial. After running as a gross sales supervisor at Thorp Apparatus, the place he helped design calf nurseries, Sauer in 2017 based Transparent-View Answers Staff, which assists swine manufacturers with allowing in Wisconsin.
His ventures have landed him into warfare with the state and a central Wisconsin the town the place he operates an animal composting and rendering industry.
Sauer says the corporate, Natural Waste Connections, which disposes of cow, horse, goat, llama, sheep and pig carcasses, is rooted in core values “like a basis constructed on treating others as Jesus steered us to — via appearing appreciate for them and their wishes.”
An indication noting its 1890 building stands in entrance of the Industry Lake The city Corridor in Burnett County, on April 28, 2023. (Credit score: Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Developer faces environmental court cases and citations
In November 2022, the city of Reseburg sued Sauer, alleging he’s working the ability with no license, producing noxious odors, generating leachate and discharging stormwater with unhealthy ranges of E. coli that drains into within sight waterways.
The lawsuit, which claims Sauer started business operations in June 2020, alleges that he refused to abide via a the town animal composting and rendering ordinance and cooperate with native officers.
Denying all the the town’s allegations, Sauer maintained he began the industry in 2008, a 12 months ahead of the city unlawfully enacted its “retaliatory” ordinance, which has since, he asserted, most effective been carried out to him, illegally.
In August, the events agreed to parameters, efficient via January 2024, in regards to the disposal and garage of useless animals.
The Wisconsin Division of Herbal Assets additionally cited Sauer 3 times. A since-dismissed case from 2022 alleged Sauer didn’t amend an commercial stormwater air pollution prevention plan. The next September, after repeated warnings, Sauer was once cited for failing to procure a building web site stormwater discharge allow and to broaden an erosion regulate plan.
In September, Sauer pleaded no contest in Clark County Circuit Court docket to one of the crucial fees, and the state brushed off the opposite. He was once fined $5,000.
“He has painted himself in an excessively unflattering gentle, and I think we will be able to pay attention refrains of, ‘How come DNR would imagine granting him a allow for a posh operation like a CAFO when he can’t even get into compliance with a stormwater allow?’” wrote an company group of workers member to the state’s CAFO allow coordinator.
Sauer, who stated the newness of Natural Waste Connections is certain to ruffle feathers and “has no correlation to the Cumberland LLC venture,” advised Wisconsin Watch that it’s as much as the state’s agricultural and herbal assets departments to keep watch over his industry with appreciate to the offenses named within the the town’s lawsuit — now not Reseburg.
“So if we’re in excellent status with the ones two departments,” he stated, “the opposite stuff is simply mainly bullshit.”
Rain soaks the bottom on the web site of a proposed concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, within the Burnett County the town of Industry Lake, on April 28, 2023. (Credit score: Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Developer on protection as neighborhood crackles
On the Industry Lake annual assembly, attendees lobbed a volley of considerations Sauer’s manner.
What would Cumberland do for the neighborhood if the farm impaired native air or water?
“So the query ‘if’ is a in reality large phrase ’purpose you’re assuming it is going to and I’m assuming it gained’t,” Sauer stated, including, “You can’t care for one thing of the unknown, on account of the unknown, with the unknown.”
A neighborhood farmer requested what promises the corporate may provide that it might “correctly” reply to injuries like manure spills.
“The solution for your query is there’s most effective two promises in lifestyles,” Sauer stated. “Loss of life and taxes.”
The group fumed.
“I will ensure you that it ain’t going to sniff, proper?” Sauer shouted over the grumbling. “And I will depart right here and fall off the top of the street and get killed. So what excellent is it?”
“You’re asking us to suppose a large number of chance and accept as true with,” any other attendee stated. “And I simply ain’t feelin’ the affection.”
A lady requested if a “complete and tangible” affect learn about could be to be had.
“That is our heritage,” she stated. “That is our legacy. That is our birthright. It isn’t yours. And also you’re seeking to dictate to us. And I’m mad as all get-out.”
The room burst into applause and amens.
“So, that isn’t required for us to do nowadays,” Sauer stated.
He reminded the target audience he didn’t must publicly speak about the hog farm till the state held a public listening to later within the overview procedure.
“You’re running from ancient wisdom,” he stated. “A few of these issues are fallacies.”
Sauer may have tried to steer the group that draining the native aquifer doesn’t make monetary sense for Cumberland’s house owners or that the manure wouldn’t odor as a result of it might be handled and injected into the bottom.
However, he stated in next interviews, what’s the purpose of seeking to persuade the “antis” when neighborhood participants already made up our minds they don’t need the pig farm?
Controversy has existed “for the reason that starting of time,” Sauer advised the group.
Industry Lake skilled controversy over a dock, he persisted, regarding any other divisive the town factor. Controversy over boat wakes too.
“And relatively truthfully, everyone’s speaking about negatives right here,” Sauer stated. “I wish to know would your battery paintings for your automotive should you had all of it negatives? No, it’s an equilibrium of positives and negatives which makes your economic system paintings.”
On the urging of any other attendee, Erik Melin addressed the collection to proportion his enthusiasm.
“I’m very excited for this,” he stated. “It lets in for me and my spouse and my youngsters to be winning in farming. We’re very invested on this neighborhood. We adore Industry Lake. We don’t wish to break it for anyone.”
When citizens recommended passing a CAFO moratorium, Sauer advised them they couldn’t do in order that night time, and even though they did, Cumberland could be exempt as a result of he already submitted the applying to the state.
“Wisconsin units the entire standards,” Sauer stated. “You observe the foundations, you do just as laid out, you get the allow. It’s now not ‘if.’”
By means of the top of the assembly, he was once hurling criminal threats.
“Proper me if I’m mistaken,” Moody stated, “however what I heard you assert is you’re coming in whether or not you must do it with the legal professionals or we welcome you.”
“I gained’t even pay a penny for that litigation,” Sauer stated, in connection with the moratorium. “The state of Wisconsin will battle this, and that’s now not going to price me a penny, but it surely’s going to price taxpayers.”
Sauer contended that even though all locals don’t get pleasure from the hog farm without delay, the Melins’ alternative would lengthen to the general public.
“You were given production on the town right here. Do you prosper from that? No, but it surely does make the neighborhood,” Sauer stated. “So it’s each and every side is a development elements of the whole thing that’s in sync that makes the neighborhood more potent.”
“Can I prevent you, ’purpose you’ve gotten up to now from my observation,” Moody stated.
“No!” Sauer stated.
“Yeah, you could have —”
“The truth is that our intentions are to come back.”
“Yeah, any manner you must.”
All the way through a deposition that took place within the Melin lawsuit, Sauer stated he left the yearly assembly with the impact that there have been “a host of pricks” in Industry Lake.
“You guys are all egocentric,” he advised trial attorney Andy Marshall. “You’re incorporated.”
Marshall, a the town assets proprietor who represented the 11 plaintiffs who sued Melin, requested Sauer if citizens’ considerations over groundwater contamination or illness also are egocentric.
“Faux information,” Sauer stated.
Trial attorney Andy Marshall stands on his assets within the the town of Industry Lake., in Burnett County on April 30, 2023. Marshall represented citizens in a lawsuit that accused Industry Lake The city Board Chairman Jim Melin of alleged conflicts of pastime within the building of the state’s greatest pig farm. (Credit score: Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Industry Lake strikes to halt hog farm
Following the yearly assembly, the neighborhood’s opposition to Cumberland was once “swift and overwhelming,” as Marshall, 63, described it.
A number of Industry Lake assets house owners and citizens shaped a neighborhood opposition staff, KnowCAFOs, and periodically deluged the e-mail inboxes of Wisconsin Division of Herbal Assets and U.S. Environmental Coverage Company group of workers, at the side of elected and appointed officers. The St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin additionally admonished the venture.
Fighters wondered the surveying and learn about of the farm web site and unsuccessfully petitioned regulators to habits an environmental affect observation.
“We can now not backtrack till the DNR begins to give protection to the waters of our state as the dept was once supposed,” wrote Industry Lake resident Judi Clarin, 62.
Confusion over CAFO possession
Sauer has been described because the advisor, coordinator or intermediary, however questions remained about whether or not he co-owned or controlled Cumberland — which shaped in 2018 — on the time he submitted his preliminary CAFO software.
Individuals who record with the state will have to certify they’re one or the opposite, however many Industry Lake assets house owners alleged Sauer misrepresented himself, a contravention punishable via a high quality of as much as $10,000 or six months imprisonment. Fighters cited the purported falsification as grounds for denying Cumberland’s software.
Sauer was once retained via house owners of an Algona, Iowa, swine control and veterinary corporate, Suidae Well being and Manufacturing, in 2017 to web site and construct the Industry Lake farm. Sauer stated he wouldn’t be paid till he did so. In 2020, a minimum of six of Cumberland’s house owners had been present or former Suidae veterinarians.
As he was once deposed in 2019, Sauer at more than a few issues claimed to not be an proprietor or know who the house owners are; to by no means were an proprietor; to be undecided whether or not he’s an proprietor; not to recall whether or not Cumberland’s different house owners ever advised him that he, too, is an proprietor; and that it’s conceivable that he could be an proprietor as a result of he could be named so someday.
When faced with those contradictions, Sauer stated he, if truth be told, is in truth the operator and supervisor.
“Operator and supervisor of what?” Marshall requested.
“This piece of paper,” Sauer stated, regarding the CAFO software, later including, “This piece of assets. This complete facility till it’s up and working.”
4 days after Sauer’s deposition, he contacted Suidae veterinarian and Cumberland co-owner Dr. Matt Anderson.
“On all the programs, I signed them as Member/Supervisor,” Sauer advised Anderson. “Of which I’d say could be most commonly true with the exception of for the truth that I in reality don’t personal any stocks into Cumberland LLC.”
Sauer recommended that Cumberland give him a 5% lower of the corporate, which might turn out he was once an proprietor. Fighters took Sauer’s message as proof that he understood he’d been “stuck” and sought to “duvet up the false statements” he made at the software. Later on, the Division of Herbal Assets required Sauer to ensure he was once approved to signal it.
Additional convoluting Cumberland’s possession had been Anderson’s remarks at a Burnett County Herbal Assets Board listening to in July 2019, in a while ahead of the committee really useful the county board of supervisors additionally enact a year-long CAFO moratorium.
“I’ve been an proprietor in Suidae for twenty years and I’ve been a veterinarian serving animals and the ones those that personal animals for simply over twenty years, and we’re now not a CAFO,” Anderson advised the target audience. “We’re a carrier supplier.”
“We sought” to move concerning the state’s allowing procedure “as absolute best we will be able to,” he persisted, “now not sneaking round by any means.” The hog farm, “if accomplished responsibly, which might unquestionably be our intent,” gifts “no risk to the neighborhood.”
Marshall, who additionally deposed Anderson, requested why Anderson failed to say that he occurs to be one of the crucial CAFO’s house owners.
“Mr. Marshall, we’re open and fair other people so we predict to be perceived that manner,” stated Anderson, who didn’t reply to Wisconsin Watch’s requests for remark.
“I’m questioning why, should you sought after to be open and fair, you don’t keep up a correspondence to the county board that’s taking into account one thing with appreciate to the industry that you just personal that you just’re section proprietor of the industry,” Marshall stated. “That moves me as being strange.”
As fighters of the proposed Cumberland LLC pig farm wondered his function within the venture in 2019, Jeff Sauer emailed Suidae veterinarian and Cumberland co-owner Dr. Matt Anderson to request a 5% lower of the corporate, which might turn out he was once an proprietor of the proposed pig farm. This symbol displays an excerpt of Sauer’s Sept. 2, 2019, e mail to Anderson.
How CAFO companions restrict legal responsibility
Many main points of the Cumberland venture are scant as the non-public corporate’s price range and operations plans are protected from disclosure.
Underneath the unique proposal, Cumberland would personal the constructions, however now not the hogs. Suidae Well being and Manufacturing additionally would personal no hogs, however its clientele would. Suidae, as a substitute, would deal with the farm’s control and payroll and obtain fee for every pig that leaves the ability for completing.
However Industry Lake neighborhood participants took word that Cumberland’s absentee house owners structured the industry as a restricted legal responsibility corporate.
Analysis carried out via College of Kentucky affiliate professor of sociology Loka Ashwood discovered that farm buyers shape LLCs to defend private belongings in case of industrial failure, enabling them to tackle extra monetary chance. As an alternative, chance is thrust upon the communities wherein CAFOs perform.
“They know they’ll have spills. They know they’ll have illness outbreaks. They know this is going to occur,” Ashwood stated. “In order that they want to scale back their legal responsibility and culpability.”
One efficient and standard device, Ashwood discovered, makes use of a series of LLCs. One LLC can retain the land underneath a CAFO and hire it to another LLC that owns the constructions. That LLC can, in flip, hire the constructions to the LLC that operates the industry. The working LLC would possibly dangle no belongings, so within the tournament of a lawsuit because of deficient control, that LLC can declare it lacks them.
In the meantime, absentee buyers don’t essentially face neighborhood pressures to perform responsibly as a neighborhood farmer would.
It’s unclear to what stage Cumberland would perform below this fashion.
With appreciate to chance control, Sauer testified that Cumberland’s house owners hadn’t thought to be striking up safety bonds to unravel doable nuisance claims as a result of they aren’t required to.
“They are able to select up and they may be able to transfer on when the instant is true for them, leaving us with what’s at the back of,” Ramona Moody, spouse of Dean Moody and the present chair of the Industry Lake board, advised PBS Wisconsin in 2019. “The cleanup, no matter they’ve left of their amenities, that finally ends up turning into our accountability. So who holds them responsible?”
Industry Lake neighborhood participants made up our minds to do exactly that.
Ramona Moody speaks in a 2019 interview with “Right here & Now.” She is the chair of the Industry Lake the town board in 2023, and wonders about responsibility on the subject of dangers related to CAFOs given possession that may be structured to restrict their legal responsibility. (Credit score: PBS Wisconsin)
Industry Lake enacts CAFO rules
After Melin agreed to step down as the town chair, the Industry Lake board handed a CAFO ordinance and moratorium.
The ordinance, since up to date, does now not affect the siting of enormous farms however regulates the way in which they run.
Industry Lake calls for new CAFOs of 500 animal devices or higher — 1,250 swine or 357 dairy cows — to use for a allow that regulates waste control, animal well being and mortality, water use and air air pollution. Homeowners additionally will have to turn out the farm gained’t hurt within sight assets values or roadways. A monetary assurance will have to be supplied to hide software overview and enforcement and, within the tournament of air pollution or closure, cleanup prices.
“They name other people ‘activists,’” Clarin stated, “however they’re simply other people which can be actively attempting to give protection to their water.”
Unsurprisingly, some farmers bristled on the ordinance. To their disbelief, it limits farm cars and big vans coming into and exiting CAFO premises to straightforward industry hours and days, with the exception of cars inquisitive about planting, harvesting and haying, which is able to perform at any time.
“It’s lovely transparent that they only don’t need farming in any respect,” Erik Melin stated. “I don’t know the place you could possibly compromise.”
Developer on the town’s considerations: ‘I don’t care’
Across the time Sauer requested Anderson for a 5% proportion in Cumberland, Marshall contacted Burnett County’s administrator to provide an explanation for why the county will have to reject Cumberland’s native CAFO software.
One reason why he cited: Sauer’s “contempt” for the county and citizens of Industry Lake.
When he was once deposed, Sauer testified that he consulted with participants of Wisconsin Producers & Trade who advised him that Burnett County’s CAFO moratorium, handed in July 2019, was once unlawful. The industry lobbying group, Wisconsin’s greatest, has performed an oversized function in opposing CAFO legislation across the state.
“So that you don’t care what the county says?” Marshall requested Sauer.
“I don’t in reality care what they are saying.”
“You don’t care what the city says?”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re going to do what you’re going to do they usually’re going to must take it?”
“I’m going to dot the i’s and pass the t’s, and we’re going to do what the regulation calls for.”
Sauer’s emotions towards the neighborhood looked as if it would additional darken.
The city remaining amended its CAFO rules in March 2022. About two weeks later, the Polk Burnett Farm Bureau sounded the alarm at the “anti-agriculture ordinances” being enacted in northwest Wisconsin.
Sauer shared the submit on social media with added observation: “Crazies are at it some extra! I am hoping they don’t write those whilst consuming!” he wrote. “They without a doubt are egocentric bastards that need what they would like and may care much less about others.”
It’s been greater than 4 years, and Cumberland nonetheless seeks state approval. After Sauer’s software was once rejected remaining spring, he returned with a smaller plan to deal with as much as 19,800 swine.
Requested how he would reply to neighborhood participants’ grievances, Sauer remarked he felt a lot the similar manner.
“The lies. The misconceptions. Simply the flat lies,” he stated. “If I used to be to indicate palms — I imply, we had been getting abused greater than any person else.”
This tale is a made from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Table, an editorially impartial reporting community primarily based on the College of Missouri Faculty of Journalism in partnership with File For The united states and funded via the Walton Circle of relatives Basis. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the community.