Minnesota looks to tighten regulations on feedlots to deal with persistent pollution from manure

For the first time in 25 years, Minnesota pollution regulators will step up their oversight of thousands of feedlots across the state. The new rules could change how and when the manure amassed by increasingly large livestock operations is stored and spread on fields, as that manure continues to contaminate drinking water in rural Minnesota.

While no new regulations have been proposed, officials with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said they want to find ways to reduce the amount of nitrate from feedlot manure that has infiltrated private wells and groundwater and caused sporadic fish kills in rivers and streams.

They said they want to make sure the state’s rules address new technology and the changing make-up of livestock, dairy and poultry operations across the state, which have consolidated to put more animals on fewer farms.

“With the move to larger facilities there’s different techniques and practices in terms of how people store and manage the feed that the animals use,” said Lisa Scheirer, the agency’s feedlot program manager. “There’s been an increase in manure that is sold or given away for a third party to apply. Generally, there’s more liquid manure.”

Minnesota has also been getting more extreme and unpredictable rain storms than it did when its rules were last updated, which have caused manure lagoons to overflow and increased runoff on farms, Scheirer said.

There are roughly 17,000 feedlots in the state. The review of the rules comes in response to a 2023 directive from the Environmental Protection Agency that the state take several steps to address nitrate contamination in southeast Minnesota. Minnesota promised then that it would act quickly to help residents with dangerous levels of nitrate in their wells.

Last spring, state officials worked to provide water to affected residents who were pregnant or had infants. Lawmakers directed $16 million in 2024 toward tests and inventories of wells in the region and clean-up of those polluted with farm runoff, among other issues. This year, the state also added new cover crop and manure monitoring requirements for some of Minnesota’s largest feedlots — those with more than 1,000 animal units.

State officials will hold public meetings throughout Minnesota to hear about how people feel about the current rules and what they’d like to see changed. The state will accept comments from groups and individuals until July 22. Then pollution regulators will create a task force with farmers, environmentalists and other residents and spend about two years drafting new rules.

Under current rules, every feedlot is required to register with the state. All have to follow the state’s standards for manure storage systems. Farmers must only apply as much manure as their crops need, according to rates set by the University of Minnesota. Every feedlot with more than 100 animal units is required to test manure for nutrient content and to keep records of all manure applications. Those with more than 300 animal units need to write up more detailed manure management plans.

An update is long overdue, said Joy Anderson, a lawyer for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), one of the groups that first asked the EPA to order the state to do more to address nitrate contamination.

“We didn’t use to have 10,000 cows on a dairy farm in Minnesota, and now we do,” Anderson said. “And the problem is that when you have all those animals consolidated in one area, the manure is really heavy and really expensive to transport, so it tends to get spread thickly near where it’s produced.”

The MCEA is asking the state to add more manure spreading protections for vulnerable landscapes like southeast Minnesota, such as requiring farmers to plant cover crops if they spread manure in the fall. The group is also asking the state to require more feedlots to get federal pollution discharge permits, lowering the threshold to 600 animal units from 1,000.

“Right now, it’s really only the 1,200 biggest feedlots in the state that have to get those water pollution permits,” Anderson said.

The MPCA will try to balance environmental protection with practical and region-specific solutions, Scheirer said.

“We’re hearing that the agency should be flexible,” she said. “Minnesota is a big state, and what might be appropriate or work in the southeast might not be appropriate in the northwest.”

Any changes to the state’s feedlot rules would most likely be felt most by small to medium-size farms — those with more than 50 animal units, said Loren Dauer, the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation’s director of public policy.

“Our state has a long history and vested interest in small-to-medium farms,” he said.

Farmers have shown they’re ready to work with the state to try to keep nutrients from washing off fields, he said.

“A lot more farmers today are investing, especially in the southeast, in having cover crop continuously growing,” he said. “Our folks live on the same ground where they utilize these nutrients. Fertilizer and manure are such valuable resources in today’s farming economy, it would be ridiculous for that to go to waste.”

Updating feedlot rules is going to be a long process, Dauer said.

“If we do hear about certain requirements coming through this change that would be too economically impactful, we will want our members to voice their concerns,” he said.

The state has been trying to reduce nitrate pollution from decades, with little success. About 90% of the nitrate in southeastern Minnesota’s water comes from farming fertilizer spread on cropland, a state study found in 2013.