A recently completed study has set the groundwork for continuous examination of how Costco’s Lincoln Premium Poultry (LPP) complex could be affecting waterways in the Fremont, Neb., area, and the company disputes its findings.
Commissioned by the Nebraska Farmers Union Foundation (NFUF) and conducted by geologist Matt Sutton, the three-year study suggests increased nutrients and pathogens in area waters “may be attributed to the Costco project,” Sutton writes in his executive summary.
Costco opened the $400 million, 400,000-square-foot LPP plant in 2019, after a four-year development process that included having to build from scratch a massive grower network of hundreds of broiler farms in a beef-dominant state.
Among the concerns of area residents and organizations that fought the project over that period, including NFUF and study collaborator GCResolve, was the impact of nutrient runoff from poultry litter that can deplete oxygen in waterways and contaminate ground water.
Using state permit information, the NFUF study, titled “Poultry Litter and Stream Health,” tested seven different locations in five counties, choosing waterways that crossed through properties where poultry litter was earmarked for application on both sides of the waterway.
Sutton explained that poultry litter-associated pathogens like campylobacter and salmonella were absent for most of the study period, but positives for those pathogens — along with the highest levels of phosphorous — doubled in the most recent testing season.
Together, they “suggest a poultry-based addition,” Sutton wrote, noting that by the time of the most recent testing season, Costco grow barns had been operational for more than two years, which was the time lapse estimated before initial field applications of poultry litter began.
LPP responds
LPP officials dispute the study, noting what they’ve identified as several flaws. Among them is the lack of verification or inquiries of actual poultry litter applications, as well as the study’s own admissions on the difficulty of making definitive connections between the LPP farm network and stream contamination.
“This summary statement verifies no correlation with sample results to the application sites at all,” said Andy Scholting, president of Nutrient Advisors, a nutrient consultant to LPP, in an emailed statement.
Scholting adds that levels of contaminants from nearly every location were at their highest levels in the fall of 2019, while LPP farms came online throughout 2019 and 2020. The first litter removed and land-applied from any of these sites did not occur until the fall of 2020, and so the land application of litter from these poultry sites had no correlation with the highest levels of stream contaminants reported in the study, he said.
LPP hired Nutrient Advisors in 2017 to help growers develop nutrient management plans and apply for state permits that require routine inspections and record keeping. This, despite the fact that the company’s production practices, including the exclusion of designed manure storage, did not require permitting under Nebraska law.
“It is disheartening that in spite of the many safeguards our farmers have added to their operations that adhere to the highest levels of environmental stewardship, opposition groups are still pointing to them as culprits in water contamination,” said LPP spokesperson Jessica Kolterman, in an emailed statement. “These efforts are misleading.”
Three years of LPP grower data, the company says, show that the entire operation produces less than one-half of 1% of the nitrogen necessary to grow the corn crop in the LPP trade area. Meanwhile, the entire production network is producing 3% of the phosphorous required to raise the necessary corn and soybeans.
Continued scrutiny
While the veracity of the NFUF study is debated, scrutiny of the LPP poultry complex is sure to continue.
“A foundation is provided herein on which future results can be compared and assessments of change can occur,” Sutton writes in his summary. “However, comparisons will only remain reliable for as long as regular data of a similar nature is maintained.”
The study offered several recommendations for improvements, such as additional testing sites, molecular DNA testing, cover cropping, and buffer strips by waterways.
