Some North Dakotans are unhappy with state regulators for granting water use permission for a mega dairy operation. Opponents fighting the move hope to get their day in court.

A petition challenges the North Dakota Department of Water Resources’ approval of Riverview Dairy’s water allotment for its 12,000+ cow expansion in Abercrombie.

Katie Garvey, senior attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said the operation will require a minimum of 500,000 gallons of water from a nearby aquifer to operate, a system already stressed at significantly lower usage levels.

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“They have their own water data that shows that the aquifer's declining, so if you take even more out of it, you're going to eventually run out of water,” Garvey pointed out.

The Wahpeton Buried Valley Aquifer provides drinking and farming water to at least 11,000 local and neighboring residents in Minnesota.

Garvey noted regulations require cities selling water to first meet the demands of existing customers. The Department of Water Resources argued it is not responsible for the sale of the water and has asked an administrative judge to dismiss the petition. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for August 12.

North Dakota law establishes a hierarchy of water allocation, with domestic use ranked first and industrial use ranked second-to-last.

Garvey stressed large-scale dairies require significant water consumption, drawing parallels to the spike in data center developments, also high-volume users of the natural resource.

“When a large-scale facility comes to your community, you really need to understand what's going to happen to the water system because water is a finite system. If you tap out an aquifer, then the people that rely on that aquifer don't have any water available to them,” Garvey underscored.

Madeline Luke, a retired physician and member of the Dakota Resource Council, a plaintiff in the case, said they have environmental concerns given a second Riverview Farms expansion of 25,000 cows in Hillsboro. Herberg Dairy would be the largest dairy in North Dakota.

Luke noted both operations are roughly two miles from the Red River and its local tributaries.

“If we keep putting these big projects (with) thousands of animals in one place and hundreds of millions of gallons of pollution, we're just going to be paying more for water," Luke asserted. "That's, really, in the future but if we don't take care of it now, it'll be too late.”

State regulators argued the plaintiffs have no standing because none of them live in Wahpeton, where the aquifer is located.

The petition is one of three pending legal actions against state agencies concerning permits for Riverview Farms, including one questioning the state’s decision to exempt both dairies from drainage permit requirements.