As results of his research flashed across the makeshift screen on the wall, Caleb Svaty voiced several requests of representatives from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Among them — dig another test hole to determine the potential impact of a proposed feedlot expansion on the region’s groundwater.

Svaty, a Kanopolis farmer, said it is his belief the water table that supplies 4S Feeders is part of the system that provides the City of Kanopolis with its drinking water.

“Because this is Kanopolis’ water source, this needs to be looked at again,” Svaty said.

His comments were part of a hearing Wednesday, March 27, in the basement meeting room of Ellsworth’s J.H. Robbins Memorial Library. More than 40 attended the hour-long session on a modified permit request from 4S Feeders.

According to the application, the feedlot’s permit is being reissued for a confined animal feeding operation for 3,999 head of cattle weighing more than 700 pounds — a 2,000-head increase in the permitted number of cattle from the original permit.

Other proposed modifications include an additional 13.25 acres of drainage area from additional pens, feed storage area, a settling basin and a second earthen wastewater retention structure.

During a public hearing last summer, several residents spoke in opposition to the permit and one spoke in favor. The most recent hearing was pretty much a repeat, with concerns centered around odor, flies and an expanded feedlot’s possible effect on water supplies.

Nearly five months after the original hearing, KDHE officials confirmed that the permit application and proposed facility modifications did not meet agency standards. As a result, state health officials would not issue the modified permit at that time. But by mid-November, permit revisions were reviewed and approved, and a copy of the draft permit request was eventually published in the Kansas Register’s Dec. 13 edition. Based on the application, the only significant change to the permit is an increase in drainage area acreage from 11.1 acres to 13.25 acres.

“This is not personal and we don’t deny anyone the right to make a living,” said Kathy Sneath, who lives near the feedlot and with her husband, Marty, has a cow-calf pair operation.

“But we have to make a stand against this proposed expansion ... It is way too close to Kanopolis and way too close to too many water resources.

“It’s just a couple of miles from the Smoky Hill River and only a few miles from Kanopolis Lake. The potential for a disastrous contamination of the creeks, the river, the lake and the groundwater is a risk we should not take.”

Marty Sneath and other witnesses voiced similar concerns.

“We can be a livestock-friendly community, but not at the expense of all community residents,” he said.

Kanopolis mayor Anthony Hopkins, reflecting the concerns he had heard from several Kanopolis citizens and city council members, urged KDHE representatives to consider fully the potential impact on the town’s water supply.

“There’s just too much at stake,” Kathy Sneath added in her testimony.

The most favorable comments came from a former Kanopolis resident who now farms at Lincoln and sells livestock supplies. He said he has lived at Garden City with its feedlots and managed a hog farm north of Kanopolis.

“There are some good things about the feedyard,” he said, pointing to products capable of controlling fly populations.

No one from the feedlot testified.

The purpose of the March 27 hearing, under the direction of KDHE officials from Hays and Topeka, was to collect vocal and written testimony — not to field questions from audience members. That was another request from those who spoke in opposition to the modified permit — create an opportunity for local residents to ask questions of state environmental officials.

Following the meeting, the KDHE’s Dan Wells said the next step will be for department staff to review comments and make a recommendation to Secretary Lee Norman, who is responsible for a final decision.

Wells, district environmental administrator from Hays, said that decision is expected in two weeks to 60 days.