Photo by George Lauby Calves in a pen at the Beer Creek Ranch. Trees along the South Platte River are in the background.

Photo by George Lauby One of the empty pens that cattle can't occupy without a permit. The feed processing center is in the distance.

Photo by George Lauby New feed bunks mark the edge of cattle pens that are being reshaped and renovated at the Beer Creek.

The possibility of a cattle feed yard expansion five miles west of North Platte still has the neighborhood alarmed.

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The Beer Creek Ranch on South River Road is again applying for a zoning permit to feed cattle. In early September, the owners started to apply for a 7,000 head permit, but withdrew the application just before a zoning hearing, after studying the zoning regulations and conferring with county officials.

The owners will try again Thursday, Oct. 29, when they appear before the Lincoln County Planning Commission.

The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the county commissioners room at the east end of the courthouse.

Less than 1,000 head are on feed in the feed yard now, kept in a few of several pens that were built over the years, capable of handling many more cattle.

The place sits just south of the trees of the South Platte River, several hundred feet from the stream. The pens are well-built to feed cattle, with fences, feed bunks and sloping pens that channel runoff away from the river.

Brothers Tim and Jon Holfaster of Paxton bought the place in 2008 from former owner Don Chase. The Holfasters changed the name from the U-Cross to the Beer Creek, naming it for a creek that is up the road.

The Holfasters now want permission from state and county officials to feed 3,500 head of cattle, with the likelihood of expanding by 50 percent to 5,250 head, which they believe would be automatically allowed under county regulations.

Earlier, back in September, they sought a permit for 7,000 head, but withdrew at the last minute and now have scaled down their plans, Holfaster said.

Lincoln County Zoning administrator Judy Clark said that initial request would not have been granted because the place would have been classified as a new feed yard, since the former owners never obtained a permit and there were no records that more than 3,500 head had ever been fed there. So, expanding to 7,000 would have put them in a whole new category.

Feeding 3,500 head is something the feedyard has always done, so it won't create more dust, odors or noise, Holfaster said.

About 880 head of Angus calves are currently on feed in the pens. And, dozens of empty pens extend south and west of the processing center. No more than 999 head can be fed there without a waste handling permit from NDEQ.

So, after the Holfasters bought the place, they embarked on a plan to upgrade pens and improve the waste handling system, working 4-5 months on designs with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, Holfaster said.

Tim Holfaster believes the NDEQ is now on the verge of issuing a permit to construct the new waste system. Already, crews and equipment are reshaping the contours of pens while cement crews rebuild bunk lines and add a few more bunks on two corners of center-pivot-irrigated cornfields, fields on which the manure will be spread, if state and county permits are granted.

Not so sure

Holfaster's neighbors Jim Reimers and Frank Nielson are not certain that the NDEQ is going to grant that permit. They have asked the NDEQ to reject that application.

Both Reimers and Nielson are retired railroad workers. They invested much of their life savings into homes that are well within a half-mile of the Beer Creek Ranch. The prospect of a growing livestock operation makes them concerned that odors, pests, noise and dust will cause their property value to drop drastically.

Worse, they feel squeezed by cattle yards on both sides. The Olson feeding operation (cap. 12,000 head), is about a half-mile north of their homes. The Beer Creek Ranch is on the south.

Last spring, thousands of starlings dropped dead on Nielson's property, killed by poison at the Olson feedlot. Nielson counted 3,000 dead birds as he and his wife picked them up to safely dispose. He asked Olson to help but didn't get a reply, he said.

And, there are six homes within a half-mile of the Beer Creek feedyard. There are 15-20 homes within two miles.

Nielson and Reimers also look east toward North Platte, where new homes are under construction west of Lakeview Ave.

Tim Holfaster says it will be okay. Pens will be empty during the summer and kept relatively clean when cattle are on feed. Trees along the river can deflect odor if it does arise.

The Holfasters want to use the pens that are there. They would install a new manure system that includes a holding pond with an impermeable liner to keep wastewater out of the ground water. That system will cost the Holfaster brothers nearly $575,000, he said.