BAD AXE, Mich.— Due to warm temperatures this winter, thousands of tons of sugarbeets are rotting in local piling grounds.
Huron County Commissioner Steve Vaughan reported at Board of Commissioners Feb. 28 meeting that farmers would like to return the beets to their farms to be spread on fields.
“There are thousands of tons of beets that are no good,” Vaughan said. “It’s going to become an environmental issue. If the beets aren’t hauled out of there before they deteriorate to where all of the liquid leaks out of them and leaches into the soil out there.”
The Verona piling grounds has “a tremendous pile of beets,” Vaughan said.
He said farmers are “not being allowed” to remove the beets because of issues with the Huron County Road Commission and the Huron County Sheriff’s Office.
Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson told the Tribune that this is not the case.
Hanson said that he called a meeting with officials from his office, the road commission, the board and Michigan Sugar Co. to work on a remedy to the situation.
Officials there agreed that Michigan Sugar would pay for a $50,000 road bond, rather than put that expense on the farmers, Hanson said.
Vaughan said the Road Commission and Sheriff’s office “refused” to do what the Michigan State Police are willing to do.
“The state police, they said that they would waive the frost laws and allow farmers to haul the beets out; they’d wave the fact that they don’t have commercial plates on their semi trucks. They’ve got farm plates on, to truck the commodities back out to the fields. But the sheriff’s department and road commission refused. So there’s a little bit of a stalemate. I know they’re in meetings. They’re trying to get this resolved.”
“We cannot look the other way,” Hanson said. “And I cannot believe that (the Michigan State Police) made such a statement.”
Lt. Charles Black, commanding officer of the Michigan State Police Third District of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, said he sees no issue with farmers hauling the beets back with farm-plated license plates, rather than commercial ones.
“They have paid proper registrations. (The beets are) going back for furtherance of the farm,” he added, calling the spoilage from warm weather “a rare occurrence.”
“It’s just helping the sugar plant out and the farmers with some fertilizer,” he said.
Source: www.michigansthumb.com