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An established 100-head hog operation in the Lonepine area of Mountain View County was granted subdivision approval last week but only on condition that the owners place a "manure caveat" on the property title.

The condition, believed to be unprecedented for the county – to provide legal easement agreements allowing "permanent and secure access of lands to facilitate the spreading of manure" – exceeds Natural Resources Conservation Board requirements for the much more intensive operations under its regulatory control, an NRCB official told the Gazette last week.

"Basically all we require is a simple letter," NRCB approval officer Sandi Roberts said Thursday. "No caveat is put on the land and that is with the understanding that the lands that are used do change over time.

"I never have put such a thing on any permit that I have issued and I haven’t seen one issued by the NRCB where a caveat has been put on title."

Under provincial law, operations of between 500 and 3,299 feeders/boars require NRCB registration as confined feeding operations, while those over 3,300 require NRCB approval.

The county’s Municipal Planning Commission – now made up of a majority of citizen members – voted last Wednesday to include the caveat as a condition of approval for an agriculture subdivision application by Genetic Alliance Ltd., a subsidiary of Sunterra Farms.

The caveat requirement was presented to MPC as a second option by the planning department, which recommended outright refusal of the application.

The company applied to subdivide the 21.4-acre farm site from its 158-acre parcel located on the south side of Twp Rd 312 east of Rge Rd 273 in Div. 3.

Representing Sunterra, which also owns the quarter section directly to the west, agent David Derksen told MPC when asked why the hog operation was being subdivided that it was in order to provide security for financing.

"It’s a business venture. It’s a subsidiary," Derksen said. "You can go to the bank with it and it doesn’t encumber the whole half section."

The company’s manure management plan, filed June 1, 2009, specifies that the liquid manure would be spread on about 280 of 300 available acres on the balance of the half section, as it currently is. Agriculture services manager Jeff Holmes estimated at the meeting that 50 acres would be adequate for an operation of its size, with up to 135 hogs at maximum capacity.

The planning department, however, recommended MPC deny the application because the 21.4 acres would not itself be sufficient to handle the manure produced on the site.

"The proposed parcel is not capable of supporting its intended use – intensive agriculture," the report from planning states. "Permanent and secure access to a land base capable of supporting the existing or intensified agricultural operation should be maintained to ensure appropriate manure management."

The report cites sections of the Municipal Government Act, the county’s Municipal Development Plan and land-use bylaw, as well as sections of subdivision policies and regulations, as reasons for refusal. Some of the statutes were adopted after the application was filed.

Derksen, a former deputy reeve who often represents subdivision and redesignation applicants, showed photographs to the commission of intensive hog, turkey and dairy operations located on land bases small enough to require the effluent be hauled to neighbouring fields.

"That’s all Genetic Alliance and Sunterra Farms intend to do," he said. "I don’t see anything wrong with this particular application getting approved. They applied under all the rules and regulations of the time. This has been an established place for years – it’s managed well."

One neighbouring landowner objected to the application. Katherine McCulloch said the company, in a 2006 application for a 15-acre subdivision that MPC ultimately denied, indicated then it intended to sell the balance of the land.

"If it’s approved there must be a caveat ensuring (Sunterra’s) lands remain manure acres," McCulloch said.

"We would want to ensure there’s some legal agreement that ensures that this operation has some access to available land," planning manager Nathan Petherick also told the commission.

Although he agreed the caveat was a necessary condition if the subdivision was approved, Coun. Gerald Ingeveld (Div. 5) was one of two MPC members who voted against the application.

"The issue here is is it appropriate and correct in our county to subdivide land so someone can go to the bank and get a loan? No, that’s not a good enough reason," Ingeveld said.

Sunterra director Dave Price said he would accept the caveat as a condition of subdivision.

"I don’t have a problem with the caveat – we can do that. It doesn’t change our practices," Price told the commission.

But, he noted, "there are numerous operations that are on land base titles smaller than the land base required for spreading."

Outside after the meeting, Price said Sunterra could live with the caveat because it owned the surrounding 300 acres, but for other operators in the county with second-party arrangements for manure spreading, it won’t be as cut and dried.

"It sets a dangerous precedent," he said.