The Hastings Creamery has been a staple in the community for over 100 years. The ownership of the business changed hands in 2021, and wastewater problems began to arise late in 2022 and have carried into 2023. The problems have been monitored by the Met Council. The Met Council installed a long-term temporary monitoring system to monitor the wastewater 24/7. Allegedly, a large spike in Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG) on Mother’s Day was the final straw for the Met Council, and they issued a permit suspension order on the evening of June 1, stating the creamery would be blocked from using the city’s wastewater sewer system as of midnight on June 4.

According to a 34-page document from the Met Council, they issued the Permit Suspension and Interruption of Service Order to the Hastings Creamery, citing 55 different findings of fact with seven different violations of discharges over eight months into the city’s wastewater sewer system that transports wastewater to the wastewater treatment plant. The first 10 pages of the document give the legal definitions along with the violations, the remainder of the document included pictures of the wastewater treatment plant and the various treatment tanks under normal operation and during the alleged violations.

Justin Malone, president of the ownership group that purchased the creamery, was clearly shaken by the news of the order.

“Over Mother’s Day weekend, they said we had dumped some milk with a valve malfunction, and it went down the drain. According to the fat levels in their sampling, they are saying we dumped 169,000 gallons of milk. That is like dumping all of our silos filled twice down the drain. That is impossible,” explained Malone.

Three of the other six violations all center around discharging too much waste into the sanitary sewer system or waste that contains too much FOG. The three remaining violations were regarding pH levels of a discharge, failure to complete a compliance task by the due date and failure to submit an accurate and complete spill report.

Malone claims the new ownership group is operating the plant the same way it has been operated for decades.

The Dairy Store’s Facebook page posted this message: “We have been informed that the Metropolitan Council plans to close the Hastings Creamery at 12 a.m. on June 4 due to FOG’s violations against our water permit. We were informed that the Hastings Creamery has been in violation since 2013 when the statute was first put into place. Our current owners were not informed of these violations at the time of purchase in 2021 but have since been working with a consultant to achieve a system that will eliminate the FOGs from entering the city sewer. This plan will take time to implement, however. While we do not deny that this violation has occurred, we have been working diligently to correct equipment issues and train staff. We do need the plant to remain in operation so that plant employees can keep their jobs and our 40-plus farm families can keep their dairies going as there is nowhere else for their milk to go. This could lead to economic hardship for entire communities.”

The consultant they brought in is an expensive investment and helped create a path to compliance. The issue is, to get to full compliance could take at a minimum of one year and likely longer at an expense of $1 million. Which leads to the question: What does the creamery do in the meantime?

One partial solution was to have waste tanks installed and pumped daily, but this is an expensive short-term fix. There are other options, but each of them takes time and that seems to be one thing the Met Council and the City of Hastings are not willing to give.

Monday afternoon, State Representative Shane Hudella helped facilitate a meeting between creamery ownership, Mayor Mary Fasbender, City Administrator Dan Wietecha, Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle, Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Peterson, other members of the Met Council, representatives of the 45 dairy farmers who bring their milk to the creamery daily and industry experts. The meeting was to help manufacture a series of solutions to help get the creamery into compliance as quickly as possible that can help satisfy the Met Council and the City of Hastings while not destroying the lives of 45 multi-generational farmers.

The details of the solutions were not fully explained to everyone because the path is just beginning and, in the meantime, one fifth generation farmer is being forced to dump 60,000 gallons of milk a day. Another farmer said he produces 80,000 gallons of milk a day that he is just dumping into a field until the creamery can operate again.

The group of farmers was standing around after the meeting fearful they would not be in business much longer. One farmer said he had hoped to pass the farm on to his son one day to keep the family tradition going, but if he can’t sell the milk, he and others will be forced to sell their herd off. Once that happens, the chance of recovery and chance of going back into the milk business is very low. The scariest part of that conversation was that it could happen as quickly as a week if there is no solution in sight quickly.

There are not enough local processors to take the milk in the meantime to keep the farmers going while the creamery works on the needed upgrades.

The negative impact on the Hastings Creamery and its Dairy Store are obvious.

It is a bad situation all around even with the hope that came from Monday’s meeting. The next few days will tell the tale of the 90-some families that rely on the Hastings Creamery operating. A quick resolution from all parties involved, even if that means a quick fix to partial compliance happens while the long-term solution is put in place, is needed to keep Hastings Creamery and their farmers in business.

Follow this developing story on hastingsjournal.news.