Judge Dimisses Most of Mower County Feedlot Case

By Tim Ruzek, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.

Feb. 21–Permits for a controversial hog feedlot in Mower County were obtained legally, a Mower District judge has ruled.

Mower District Judge Donald E. Rysavy filed an order Feb. 14 granting the Santos Group’s motion for a summary judgment in their favor stemming from a Jan. 9 hearing. Santos Group is dismissed from the lawsuit.

Rural residents who filed the lawsuit will continue with a damages claim against Mower County and its feedlot officer Lowell Franzen, who owned the land and got the permits.

The plaintiffs allege Franzen illegally got approval for his own 14-acre feedlot proposal, misrepresented his plan for the operation in the permitting process and sold it to Santos Group, a major hog producer from Northfield, for more than $240,000 above the land’s market value. The sale occurred in April, two weeks after the state approved a feedlot permit for Franzen.

Since Aug. 3, Franzen has been on a paid leave of absence with the county. The plaintiffs allege Franzen negligently or intentionally misrepresented facts as a public official about the project, such as ownership, construction and operation.

The plaintiffs, now at 17 overall, filed the complaint in August against Franzen — in his county job and individually — Santos Group and Mower County.

The plaintiffs argued the permit and authorization should be revoked because they were issued prior to a state environmental-assessment worksheet.

But the feedlot couldn’t begin operations until getting approval from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and obtaining a state permit, Rysavy stated. Franzen got that last spring and transferred it to Santos Group in April. The MPCA has an ongoing internal investigation into the project’s permitting.

The judge denied Santos Group’s request for reimbursement of attorney fees.

Santos Group built a $6.5 million hog operation, with plans for a 4,064-sow gestation barn and a farrowing barn for up to 768 sows and 1,280 nursery pigs.

Dustan Cross, a New Ulm, Minn., attorney for Santos Group, said Wednesday that state officials gave notice to surrounding landowners about the project but no one commented or objected during the state’s environmental review, Cross said.

“(That) demonstrates to me, that it’s not the project that they object to,” Cross said. “It’s the fact that it’s my clients that own the project that they object to.”

Peters has argued that Franzen told neighbors in fall 2006 that he’d build, own and operate a finishing operation for hogs but never disclosed a July 2006 purchase agreement he made with a Santos Group official for the feedlot.

Franzen hasn’t commented during the case, and his attorney Michael Ford, of St. Cloud, couldn’t be reached Wednesday. Ford has said Franzen didn’t mislead or do anything illegal.

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