Archive: News

Alaska has its oil pipeline.  And it turns out that Lansing has manure pipelines.  Last Wednesday the Lansing Town Board considered a request from mega-farm Willet Dairy to run such a line along one town road and across another to transport manure used for fertilizer from one of their properties to another.  Lansing Highway Superintendent Jack French said that the benefit to the town would be reducing serious wear and tear to town roads from trucks transporting manure.

"It takes a lot of heavy truck traffic away, getting the fertilizer to the fields in the Spring and then again in the Fall," French told the Board.  "It really takes a toll on our roads.  You're talking about 120,000 or 130,000 pounds for those trucks and tractors."

Willet Dairy is an enormous farm with properties mainly in Cayuga County.  The proposed pipeline would go by some residences, and French says Farm officials have been in contact with most of them.  He noted the eight inch heavy gauge plastic pipe will be installed beneath the road shoulder, four and a half feet underground to get it below the frost line, and will not traverse individual property owners' yards.  But he and several others expressed concern about liability and recourse if the pipeline should break.

"(Town roads are affected by) not only the weight, but the mess that it makes in the roads, too," said Deputy Supervisor Connie Wilcox.  "My only concern is that I hope it never breaks."

French said that the farm has a lot of experience in laying manure pipelines in Cayuga County, but local farmer Andra Benson said that the board should be concerned about nearby water sources, noting that Willet Dairy has been sued for contaminating local residents' water supplies with manure.  Deputy Supervisor Connie Wilcox said that the lawsuits relate to spreading fertilizer on the fields, not from pipeline accidents.  In April of 2009 U.S. District Court Judge Frederick J. Scullin ruled for the dairy against residents who claimed their water supplies were polluted with manure coming out of faucets in their homes.  After nine years of litigation, Scullin said the lawsuit was frivolous, and ordered the plaintiffs to pay part of the farm's legal fees.

"When manure filters down it naturally decays, and the ground and all the bugs help it," Benson explained.  "If it goes directly into a waterway or a swamp or a stream it's just going to kill it.  That would be my only concern."

Councilwoman Kathy Miller asked whether other dairies use pipelines, and Benson said that while pipelines are commonly used on the farm's own land, it is uncommon to run them along public roads.  She noted that her farm as a pipeline that goes under Davis and Lansingville Roads which intersect farm property.  The proposed Willet Dairy pipeline would join properties that are not aligned.

Supervisor Scott Pinney said he would be in favor of allowing the pipeline subject to legal considerations that protect the Town and residents against mishaps.

"Legally it's going to depend on whether we have the authority to do this," said Town Attorney Guy Krogh.  "The only other question is any liability that would surround traffic impact, breaks in the line, etc.  I think some sort of insurance where the town is an additional insured party, or some type of performance bond -- we can discuss what's appropriate.  You don't want to pick a solution that is so expensive that they can't do it.  A bond would probably be too expensive for something like that, but maybe insurance, if they already have a policy for the infrastructure, may be a solution."

French says Willet Dairy would be responsible for laying the pipeline, subject to obtaining a right of way permit.  The fee for the permit is the only remuneration the Town would receive.  French said that guarantees built into the Town's existing right of way permit wouldn't begin to cover potential damage from a broken pipeline.

"A right of way permits only calls for a thousand dollars," French noted.  "A thousand dollars won't do a whole lot if something should happen."

He told board members that Davis Road and Town Line Road, the only Town roads on the route of the proposed pipeline would not have to be closed for construction.  Fenner Road might, but that is a county road not under town jurisdiction.  The pipeline would be installed in the shoulder of Davis Road, and the contractor would have to bore beneath Town Line Road to install the pipe across that street.  He also said the farm already has installed pipelines in the Town of Lansing, but not on Town roads.  He said he granted them a permit last summer to bore beneath Breed Road to reach a field.

"It really is a huge, huge savings on our roads," French said.  "It's unbelievable the amount of weight it puts on them."

Pinney said town officials will research the issue more and discuss it again at their next meeting.

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