Commissioners honors Heroes, hear heated testimony over milk plant expansion

With all members present, the Lincoln County Commission met Tuesday, July 22 in the Lincoln County Board room. Commissioners heard agenda items. 

Sheriff Steve Swenson with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office presented awards to two community members for their heroic efforts in helping to save a life. Officer Colshan read a statement about the event. 

“On July 6, 2025, at 10:17 a.m. Lincoln County Dispatch received a 911 call from a person at Lake Alvin about another person not breathing. The caller did not provide any location information or details as to what was happening. When Lincoln County deputies arrived on scene, they located Billy Rothenberger near the entrance station, directing them where they needed to go, which was needed due to the lack of call in information deputies received. Billy continued to direct other first responders to the swim beach as they arrived,” said Officer Colshan

“During the investigation, deputies learned that a 15-year-old boy and his father were outside the swim zone at Lake Alvin and both started struggling to swim and stay afloat. The mother, who also could not swim, started yelling for help. Billy heard the calls as she was preparing her stand up paddle board to go on the lake. Billy immediately started paddling out to help. Billy was able to get the father back to the raft that he had to keep him afloat. By now, the boy had gone underwater. Billy paddled over to where he was last seen and with some help from the nearby father directing her where to go, Billy located the boys body that was completely underwater and unresponsive. Billy put a life jacket and her paddle board underneath the boy and paddled him back to shore. Kent Walz who was fishing down the shoreline heard the commotion and went over to help. Kent quickly recognized that the boy was unresponsive and not breathing. Kent immediately started CPR on the boy. After several compressions, Kent was able to revive the boy to where he started coughing up water and eventually started to breath on his own. Without Billy’s quick actions, the father may not have been able to reach the raft and keep himself afloat, and the boy would have slipped further under the water where she would not have been able to see him. Combined with Kent’s immediate initiation of CPR to get the boy breathing again, it is quite likely two lives would have been lost that day. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank these two heroes for their life saving efforts at Lake Alvin, on July 6, 2025,” Colshan concluded. 

As the audience stood for applause, Sheriff Swenson shook hands with Walz and Rothenberger while presenting a life-saving award plaque and a gold Sheriff challenge coin for their efforts. 

Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen opened the floor for public comment for items not on the agenda. Linda Montgomery was the first to the podium. 

“I just wanted to talk about something that we have been talking about at the last few meetings, and that’s the vehicles that are in the Lincoln County fleet. On the sheet that Commissioner Otten was able to put together, she has 72 vehicles and I believe that we might be missing a few on that, because the state’s attorney did say that they had gotten sheriff’s vehicles that have been used. I’m just wanting to make sure that we have the total number. It was brought up that we have 173 employees, and I was hoping that during the next part of this discussion that we could be having people who have turned in when they use a civilian vehicle, that we should see their mileage so that we can actually determine which departments actually need vehicles and then continue to discuss having a motor pool or vehicles not assigned to specific businesses except for the sheriff and the highway department,” she said. 

Julie Dotzenrod from Tegra Group was present for an update on the Justice Center. 

“As you’ve drove by, you’ve probably seen that we’ve made pretty good progress out there, it’s looking very nice. Right now, as you can see, the enclosure is pretty much completed, all the structural steel is installed, the pre-cast is installed, and we are working on the roofing membrane right now, we’re about 50 percent done with that. The first and second floor floor slabs are complete, and the slab on grade is about 60 percent complete, we have just the lobby to pour out,” she said. 

Tegra’s goal is to have the building be completely watertight by the end of the summer. Utility work for storm, sewer, and water have all been started on site and will connect to West Street next spring. Duct work, plumbing, mechanical, and electrical work will all begin in the winter. With no questions for Dotzenrod, chairwoman Landeen thanked her for her report.  

Chairwoman Landeen opened the floor for a public hearing to consider an application for a temporary on-sale liquor license to operate outside the municipality for Prosper Country Warehouse & Event Hall for events to occur on August 2nd and September 16th, 2025. Located at Prosper Country Warehouse & Event Hall, 46620 278th St., Lennox, SD 57039, Tract 3A of Poppenga’s addition in the SW Quarter of Section 28, Township 99 N Range 51 West of the 5th pm Lincoln County, SD. Allie McLouth was present on behalf of the Prosper Country Warehouse & Event Hall. 

“The application is for a day liquor license, we do them frequently. You guys have approved them in the past, which I appreciate,” she said. 

With no proponents or opponents to the application, a motion was made to approve the temporary on-sale liquor license by Joel Arends, seconded by Jim Schmidt, motion carried.

Chairwoman Landeen opened the floor for a public hearing for an appeal on a decision by the Lincoln County Planning Commission to approve Conditional Use Permit #USE-0014-2025 to allow for the expansion of the agriculturally related operation (milk condensing plant) on the property described as Lot A, Tract 1, Van Beek Addition, NE1/4, Section 34-T97N-R51W, Delaware Township. Planning Director, Toby Brown provided an overview of the motion. 

“The item before you is an appeal of the planning commission’s approval of a conditional use permit for the expansion of an agricultural related operation. Subject parcel is approximately six and a half miles northwest of the city of Beresford. Subject parcel is 20 acres in size, and is zoned A1 agricultural, as is all adjacent properties. Subject property as you can see is developed. Use 0010 2023 which was appealed and upheld by the board of commissioners allowed the construction of approximately 47,000 square foot building that is used for RO. In layman’s terms, that’s removing the water from the milk that comes into the facility,” Brown said. 

The applicant would like to do an expansion to the existing facility of approximately 13,000 square feet. 

“Staff notified the individuals that per the approval of the existing conditional use on the property, which is use 0010 2023, it does require any expansion would need a new conditional use permit,” he said. 

Brown reported that the planning commission conducted two public hearings on the application as there was an abundant amount of concern with the silage trucks going throughout the county. 

“Really the issue that I would say from staff’s perspective is it’s traffic safety related. A lot of concerns with obeying the traffic regulations that exist, whether a township or county road, and part of that through the planning and zoning department, these issues aren’t zoning related or an item covered by the county’s nuisance regulations. But again, as staff we acknowledge that there are some concerns,” Brown continued. 

Appellant testimony is taken first in an appeal, so Chairwoman Landeen opened the floor to Bethany Erck. 

“I am a half a mile south of this operation. I am the canary in the coal mine. I’m the one here to tell you a little bit of what we have going on there and what I fear will happen if you approve and uphold the approval of this permit. Truthfully, hearing Toby’s report, I’m appalled. I feel ignored. I feel dismissed. None of my concerns were addressed. So I’m going to briefly address them tonight so you guys have an opportunity to hear what I was concerned about. The biggest part about where I live is the noise that was disregarded, isn’t that funny? It wasn’t even discussed tonight, but I’ll tell you anything that exceeds 80 decibels (dB) at a residence creates hearing damage. I have evidence that goes on and on. These are pictures of my front porch, time stamped 9:42 p.m. so I really want to get it on public record so you folks know this noise is not going to go away. When we’re talking today about adding, if we approve this, 75 trucks per day past residences in our townships, that’s crazy, and I’m not the only one that’s going to experience this. So you folks need to be aware that the noise levels exceed hearing safe levels. If you approve this, you’re denying the opportunity to protect me,” she said. 

Erck believes the dairy is a good thing for a community, but should be set up in a place where wastewater treatment is available, not near homes in a flood plain. Seven others echoed Erck’s grievances and stressed to the commission safety protocols are not being met in the neighborhood including speeding, semi’s running stop signs, chemical usage, and unauthorized use of the roadways. 

Chairwoman Landeen thanked everyone for coming and speaking to the commission about their concerns. 

Landeen then opened the floor to the applicant, Red Rock Real Estate, to present their side. Paul Kostboth of A1 Development Solutions stood give a presentation on what the facility does and how they are looking to expand. 

“The milk comes into the plant and right away the cream is taken off the milk. That cream would be sold off to a plant that uses cream for butter, sour cream and those products. What this plant is doing is separating milk into its components. It’s not manufacturing anything. After you’ve taken out the cream, it goes through, as it stands today, the RO system. In the future, if this is approved, the UF line is added either way, the water that is removed goes through a RO system again to be further cleaned and sent back to the neighboring dairies to be used for water for the cows and cleaning,” Kostboth said. 

The remaining portion of the meat Kostboth told commissioners would be used for protein powders and cheese. 

“This is not making condensed milk from the standpoint of what you buy in a can on a store shelf that has products including sugar added to it, the condensed reference to this plant is taking the water out of the milk,” he said. 

Kostboth reported that since the creation of the plant, 31 new jobs have been added to the community and the expansion would add five to seven new jobs. 

“What we’ve been told from the engineers involved that have started the traffic study, Terry, the highway superintendent, said the average daily count they were getting was right at 1,200 vehicles on 291st between the interstate and 466. My understanding was it was around a week, but I honestly do not know how long they had it up. If that’s the number coming from the highway superintendent, we’re talking less that five per cent that these trucks are adding,” he said. 

Seth Lopour, council for Red Rock Real Estate stood to clarify more information for the commission. 

“I’d like to just point out for the commission, because there’s been a lot of testimony today about silage trucks and issues with the dairy. The issue before the commission today is the appeal of the condensing plant. This is not an appeal of the dairy. It’s a very narrow question before the commission today,” he said. 

Commissioner Arends addressed all the community members and representatives from Red Rock Real Estate in asking why they haven’t gotten together before meeting to come to an agreement and stressed the importance of speaking face to face to come to an agreement in Lincoln County. Arends urged both parties to come to an agreement and asked Red Rock Real Estate what their position is. 

“Our position would be that we sit down with them pre-harvest, go over the roads, review all the roads that we impact for that harvest period and once done, we will pay for maintenance related to the damage that was caused related to the roads we are driving on,” said Brad Rosenboom. 

Testimony continued from Red Rock Real Estate representatives on the project. Rosenboom returned with an agreed upon amount for the townships.

 “Commissioner Arends, you’ve asked what we’re willing to do, and tonight you can put it on the record that we will agree to write a $25,000 check to both Brooklyn and Delaware Townships on an annual basis,” he said. 

Arends made a motion to amend the proposed condition use permit, taking out the language in section four and state a condition of the conditional use permit, the applicant agrees to pay Delaware and Brooklyn townships $25,000 a year for maintenance of the roads, with the additions of Betty Otten’s provisions, seconded by Otten, motion carried 4-1 with Doug Putnam being the nay vote. Motion by Arends to pass the amended condition use permit, seconded by Otten, motion carried.