The ethanol industry in South Dakota and across the Midwest is in an economic free-fall due to decreased global demand for ethanol-infused gasoline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ethanol-infused gasoline had fallen below $1.90 a gallon in Meade County, S.D. on April 4, 2020, and per-gallon prices are in the $1.60 range in East River. Low prices can be an indicator of low demand, in this case due to the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. Photo: Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota News Watch
Fear of spreading the deadly virus has led governments around the world to cancel gatherings and urge or require people to stay home, and many individuals are self-isolating to stay safe, significantly reducing the global demand for gasoline.
The pandemic has hit the ethanol industry at a time producers were already suffering through poor market conditions owing to the trade war with China, a glut of oil production during a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia that sent ethanol prices tumbling and waivers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that enabled American refineries to use less ethanol.
Brian Jennings
“The important context here is that a lot of the ethanol industry was hanging on by a string before the coronavirus hit,” said Brian Jennings, CEO of the American Coalition for Ethanol, a nonprofit national trade group based in Sioux Falls. “And we’re seeing unprecedented demand destruction right now, so undoubtedly, 2020 is going to be a bloodbath for the industry.”
The market upheaval has jeopardized the jobs of hundreds of well-paid ethanol plant workers in South Dakota and beyond, but has also hurt the financial fortunes of tens of thousands of farmers who provide the corn that is the basis for the biofuel and byproducts such as distiller’s grains.
The per-gallon price paid to ethanol producers has fallen to record lows, dropping 37% in one month from $1.24 a gallon on Feb. 27, 2020, to just 78 cents a gallon on March, 27, 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The per-gallon price in late March was down 47% from a recent high of $1.47 per gallon in South Dakota in late November.
The per-bushel price paid to South Dakota corn producers has followed the downward trend in the ethanol industry. According to USDA, the per-bushel price of corn fell by 16% from $3.57 per bushel on Feb. 28 to only $2.99 per bushel on March 27.
The U.S. is the top ethanol-producing country in the world, followed by Brazil. In 2018, American plants produced more than 16 billion gallons of ethanol, exporting 1.7 billion gallons to 78 countries. The industry supported 365,000 jobs and added $46 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product.
Across the country, dozens of ethanol plants have closed, gone idle or reduced production as Americans and people across the world have dramatically cut back on driving amid the pandemic. Production levels for 2020 are expected to be down by 4 billion gallons, Jennings said.
About 30 of the roughly 200 ethanol plants in the U.S. have shut down, and another 80 have reduced production by 50% or more, Jennings said.
The Siouxland Ethanol plant in Jackson, Neb., just southwest of Sioux City, Iowa, ceased production in April, and Jennings said the NuGen Energy plant in Marion, S.D., has also gone idle during the market crisis (an employee who answered the phone at NuGen had no comment.)
Redfield Energy in Redfield, S.D., has reduced production to 75% of its maximum capacity amid the market slowdown, said Dana Siefkes-Lewis, chief administrative officer at the plant.
By storing excess ethanol in tanker rail cars or on-site storage tanks, the plant that typically produces 63 million gallons of ethanol a year has avoided laying off or cutting any of its roughly 50 employees, Siefkes-Lewis said. The plant has also transitioned into making hand sanitizer to aid in the battle against COVID-19 and to help keep the plant operating, she said.
“It’s a day-by-day situation, and we are still running but being very cautious about the situation,” she said. “We do have quite a bit of storage on our site, so we think we’ll be able to continue production through the duration of the virus.”
Top 10 U.S. ethanol-producing states
This chart shows the Top 10 U.S. states in terms of gallons of ethanol produced in 2018.
Rank
State
Billions of gallons/year
1
Iowa
4.2
2
Nebraska
2.2
3
Illinois
1.8
4
Minnesota
1.3
5
Indiana
1.2
6
South Dakota
1.1
7
Wisconsin
0.6
8
Ohio
0.5
9
Kansas
0.5
10
North Dakota
0.5
Source: U.S. Renewable Fuels Association
Farmers also stung by ethanol slowdown
The ethanol market meltdown has also hurt South Dakota’s roughly 12,500 corn farmers, said Lisa Richardson, executive director of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association.
In a typical year, South Dakota farmers produce about 800 million bushels of corn, about 450 million of which are used for ethanol production, 100 million for livestock feed and the rest for global food exports, Richardson said. Many corn farmers are also investors or have some type of financial stake in ethanol plants, she said.
Corn growers were looking forward to a strong growing season in 2020 given the weather so far, but that may not help them if markets for their products don’t rebound, Richardson said. The effects of the ethanol market collapse will be felt far beyond the production plants and farmers who supply them with corn, she said.
“The problem here is unprecedented,” she said. “Corn is your largest commodity in the state, and ethanol is the corn producer’s largest market, and agriculture is the largest industry in the state, so this is very significant.”
Another concern amid the pandemic is whether global supply chains will remain viable and allow for corn and corn products to be distributed to markets around the world, she said.
Consumers can easily see evidence of the reduced demand for gasoline by the lack of motorists on the roads, and by watching the gas price at the pump. Gasoline with 10% ethanol, labeled as “Plus” or “Premium,” has fallen well below $2 per gallon across South Dakota, with prices in the $1.85 range now common in West River and in the $1.60 range in East River for Plus gas.
Global gasoline demand is also way down amid the pandemic. In the United Kingdom, traffic has fallen to 1955 levels, as passenger-vehicle traffic is off 75% and bus mileage is down by 60%.
In Sioux Falls, local streets are seeing as much as 40% declines in vehicle travel, with many traffic counts down by 20% in the past month, according to street-department data reported by the Argus Leader.
South Dakota is the sixth-leading U.S. state in terms of ethanol production, with about 1.2 billion gallons produced in 2019, according to the U.S. Renewable Fuels Association. Iowa is by far the largest producer, with about 4.5 billion gallons a year, followed by other Midwest states including Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.
South Dakota is home to 16 plants or related facilities, all in the eastern half of the state; depending on size and production capacity, most plants employ between 40 and 60 workers.
Sioux Falls is the corporate headquarters of one of the world’s largest ethanol producers, POET biofuels, which has 27 refineries in seven states, including six plants in South Dakota. In total, POET facilities produced about 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol in 2019 and employed about 1,600 people, including 240 in its South Dakota plants and about 450 at its Sioux Falls headquarters. A spokeswoman for POET said company officials were too busy in early April to grant an interview.
The American ethanol industry arose in 2007 amid a movement to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and develop a renewable source of energy from corn. The United States requires that most petroleum producers blend ethanol into their fuel. Plants began production in South Dakota around that time.
Good times for ethanol gone bad
The industry has seen relatively good times since then, with slowdowns tied generally to dips in the American economy, including during the Great Recession in the years surrounding 2008.
Not a single customer was in sight at the gas pumps at this station in Summerset, S.D., on a warm Saturday afternoon in early April. Low demand for gas amid the COVID-19 pandemic has caused ethanol prices to fall to record levels. Photo: Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota News Watch
The per-gallon price for ethanol hit a national high as recently as 2011, when it reached $2.91 a gallon, according to federal data.
Despite some ups and downs, the demand and prices have generally stalled or fallen sharply in recent months.
In addition to the placement by China of tariffs on American ethanol exports, and the Russia-Saudi Arabia price war that sent prices haywire, the U.S. ethanol market was stung by waivers granted by the Trump administration and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Jennings said.
“2019 was a terrible year for the industry,” Jennings said. “We had markets taken away with the China trade war and the price wars, and then domestic markets were taken away through the mismanagement of the Renewable Fuel Standard.”
Pruitt granted scores of waivers to small oil refineries that allowed them to stop blending ethanol into their fuels as required by the Renewable Fuel Standard enacted by Congress in 2005.
“The candid and honest answer is that the Trump administration was looking to do favors to the oil refiners, who have long complained about the fact the Renewable Fuel Standard eroded their market share,” Jennings said.
Jennings sent a letter to current EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Friday, April 3, urging the agency to ensure that the full required level of ethanol to be used by American refiners remain intact despite the overall slowdown in demand and use of ethanol by consumers. He also argued against allowing any more waivers to be enacted.
Failure to uphold the required level, Jennings wrote, could cost U.S. ethanol producers $2 billion in losses and cost corn growers $1.35 billion in losses.
Siefkes-Lewis said Redfield Energy will do whatever it can to protect its workforce, which she said includes employees with a unique set of skills.
“We know that if we would lay off one employee, we would lose more than that,” she said. “If we shut down the plant, [employees] would need a job and they would have to get a job elsewhere, and we don’t think we’d ever get them back.”
Siefkes-Lewis said ethanol producers are in the difficult spot of knowing that the only possible solution to the market woes — aside from an unexpected return to a high demand for gasoline — is that other producers shut down or reduce production.
“It’s sort of a perfect storm where nothing is in balance,” she said. “We hate to see other plants slow down or shut down, but that may be the only way we can succeed and bring supply and demand back into balance.”
The market for ethanol and prices paid to producers may continue to fall as the pandemic worsens in the U.S., further damaging the industry, Jennings said. Gasoline use is down 40% to 50% in the U.S. already and could fall by as much as 70% in urban areas where quarantine orders are strictest, he said.
“There’s this wishful thinking that there’s going to be this pent-up demand for gas, that once we’re over coronavirus, people are going to want to get out there and drive more and the economy will shoot back up,” he said. “But it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now. More shutdowns seem certain, and we’re just going to have to wait and see how long this lasts.”
Still, some producers are staying hopeful that the industry will bounce back once the pandemic passes.
“Summer driving season is close, though I don’t know that people will be out driving this summer,” said Siefkes-Lewis, who was the first employee hired at Redfield Energy in 2005. “But we’ve always been able to come out of it, and I don’t have any doubt that we’ll be able to come out of this one, too. I really believe that, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to tell our employees not to leave.”
On Monday, the Garretson City Council faced the choice between extending Ordinance 655, which limited patrons to 10 or less at businesses such as restaurants, or voting to approve a new ordinance which has much lower restrictions. The council opted to allow 655 to lapse, and voted unanimously for Ordinance 656. Garretson restaurants and food establishments can now host up to 6 legal adults in a party (minors are not counted), and up to as many parties as their capacity, with 6-foot distancing between parties, will allow. Entertainment and recreational facilities can host up to 50% of its maximum capacity, and all other businesses are encouraged to continue to maintain social distancing procedures.
The council also voted to re-open the City’s parks, including playground equipment, picnic shelters, camping, and sanitary facilities, with signage posted to encourage CDC protocols to continue.
Everything is to take effect immediately.
While all estimates state that South Dakota (and especially Minnehaha County) is not yet past its peak infection rate for the novel coronavirus, the release of Governor Noem’s “Back to Work” initiative, announced last week, has made it difficult for South Dakota to continue imposing strict regulations within its towns and cities.
When citywide restrictions were applied at the end of March, South Dakota had only seen 30 cases of COVID-19 and one death. Cases were not yet increasing exponentially, and Italy, which was suffering the worst of any country at that point, seemed very far away. It was hoped that by implementing strict regulations on gathering, that the number of cases could be mitigated.
By the next week, however, cases had started increasing rapidly. By April 5, it started an exponential climb. Between April 12 and April 18, an outbreak at Smithfield Foods was becoming apparent as cases suddenly jumped, surpassing 100 new cases per day. Two weeks out from that, the numbers of cases have started leveling off, dropping down to around 50 new cases per day.
While over 16,000 people in South Dakota have tested negative so far, per Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon, the state has a capacity to process 3,000 tests per day. As of Friday, May 1, the state was not seeing that level.
Testing is not currently including antibody testing, which is showing whether someone has already had the virus, even if they tested negative. While hospitals around the state have started offering it, antibody testing is not yet widespread in South Dakota. Antibody testing has not yet been proven as effective proof of immunity, but signs are growing that some immunity is conferred. Per the FDA, more widespread data is needed in order to confirm this. The SD Department of Health is continuing to tell people who have tested positive for antibodies to continue social distancing, masking, handwashing, and other mitigation behaviors, because false positives, fraudulent testing, and antibody cross-reactivity in testing to other coronaviruses may exist.
The major outbreaks of COVID-19 have been in Minnehaha, Lincoln, Brown, and Union Counties. The majority of South Dakota has a sprinkling of cases here and there, with many counties containing no currently active cases, which means that mitigation has worked in the more rural areas of the state. In Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties, however, the story is different. Most of the cases are still centered in these two counties, which means that risk of transmission is still high. With Garretson in Minnehaha County, the city’s residents need to ensure they continue to take precautions.
The Garretson City Council passed Ordinance 656, which relaxes some restrictions on businesses within the City limits, allowing them to operate somewhat closer to normal, while still taking into consideration pandemic mitigation measures. The Garretson School Board discussed options for graduation, stating that while they'd like to have a normal ceremony, they will have to follow state and federal guidelines, and discussed plans to use the football field if this is not possible. They moved the date of graduation to June. We also take a look at several farmers' issues, including pandemic disaster relief efforts, ethanol, and more. Plus, more Class of 2020 spotlights and a message from Mayor Greg Beaner with some good news. Read your issue today!.
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by Bart Pfankuch and Nick Lowrey, South Dakota News Watch
The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed the U.S. meatpacking industry, but public health experts say the risks posed to workers and the U.S. food supply chain by airborne viral infections were readily apparent and could have been addressed years ago.
The Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls has been a hot spot for COVID-19 infections for employees and their families. The plant, one of the nation's most productive, remained shut down as of April 29, though government and company officials were working to re-open the plant safely. Photo: Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota News Watch
Ongoing virus outbreaks could have been avoided, and future illnesses eliminated, if major meatpacking plants had implemented disease-control measures recommended by the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention long before COVID-19 was first identified. The plants only began implementing such measures after workers started to get sick and die from the disease.
Now, as workers at shuttered plants are likely to return to work soon under a presidential order, federal regulators continue to suggest rather than require companies to implement basic safety measures, such as separating workers by six feet or more, promoting hand washing, issuing face masks and telling sick workers to go home.
One of the biggest COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. occurred at the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls. The plant was the nation’s largest COVID-19 hotspot for nearly a week in April. So far, nearly one-fourth of its workforce — more than 850 people — has tested positive for the virus that causes the deadly disease.
On April 29, state officials in Minnesota announced that about 500 workers at the JBS meatpacking plant in Worthington were positive for COVID-19; that plant shut down on April 20. Nationwide, several thousand meatpacking workers have been sickened and dozens hospitalized due to COVID-19. Some workers have died from the disease, including at least two in South Dakota.
Federal regulators, though, have been reluctant to force meatpackers to address the threat of airborne infections through regulation, even in light of COVID-19, and plant operators have not willingly implemented safety and reporting measures, some of which had been recommended for more than a decade.
On April 28, the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration issued a “statement of enforcement policy,” saying it was vitally important that meatpackers implement guidance on how to handle COVID-19, issued jointly by OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The statement said OSHA would use “enforcement discretion” for employers adhering to OSHA/CDC guidance on COVID-19 and would take into account good faith attempts to follow the guidelines in the event of an investigation. The policy statement also said not implementing OSHA/CDC guidance could be used against an employer in the event of a lawsuit.
Debbie Berkowitz
Still, in relying on suggestions rather than regulations, the agency has failed in its core mission to protect workers, said Debbie Berkowitz, an expert on the meatpacking industry who now serves as worker health and safety director for the National Employment Law Project in Washington, D.C.
OSHA has increasingly taken a hands-off approach to the meatpacking industry and has not enforced the COVID-19 guidelines set first in March and then again in April by the CDC, said Berkowitz, who has also worked as the health and safety director for the national AFL-CIO. The failure by OSHA to require rather than suggest safety measures for workers in the American meatpacking industry has created a situation where an illness such as COVID-19 can easily spread within the plants and to the public beyond, she said.
“OSHA has completely abdicated its responsibility to protect meatpackers,” said Berkowitz, who spent six years as chief of staff and a senior policy adviser for OSHA in the early 2010s and who once toured the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls. “OSHA has set no specific regulations for meatpacking in regard to COVID-19 and they’re not enforcing the CDC guidance of six feet apart and masks for everybody.”
Experts say meatpackers and other industries missed an opportunity to learn from the H1N1, or swine flu, pandemic that struck in 2009, failing to implement safety suggestions made at that time to prevent the spread of future airborne illnesses in workplaces.
As recent as 2016, the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration was drafting a rule that would have required employers to take steps to reduce the potential for airborne infections to spread, said Dr. Melissa Perry, an occupational health researcher with George Washington University. That effort was killed in 2017 and hasn’t been revisited since.
“There's been a neglect in paying attention to the risks of airborne pathogens for workers since that time,” Perry said. “Prior to that, I know there had been multiple efforts to push forward an airborne pathogens standard.”
Officials in the meatpacking industry say that prior to COVID-19 outbreaks in packing plants, they had no idea that an airborne virus could pose a serious threat to workers and, by extension, the country’s food supply.
“I don’t believe there was any concern,” said Christopher Young, executive director of the American Association of Meat Processors. “I don’t believe there was any industry that was concerned. Everyone had normal workplace policies in place for employee welfare, but no one had ever experienced something like this.”
The latest recommendations from OSHA and the CDC also have been changing rapidly, Young said, which has made them more difficult for the industry to implement.
“Right now, the concentration is on following CDC guidelines for mitigating the risk to employees,” Young said. “That guidance seems to be changing quite often, so we are trying to make sure we stay up with it.”
In an April 24 statement aimed at addressing what it called “misinformation” about its response to COVID-19, Smithfield Foods officials said the company has done everything in its power to follow the CDC’s pandemic guidance and has kept most of its facilities operating in an effort to maintain the U.S. food supply, not to simply rake in additional profits.
“We are doing everything we can, as fast as we can. There are, however, inescapable realities about our industry. Meat processing facilities, which are characterized by labor intensive assembly line style production, are not designed for social distancing. Employees often work in close proximity on production lines. Similarly, space constraints exist in common areas such as cafeterias, break and locker rooms and bathrooms. These areas pose additional challenges."
"Consequently, mitigating risk of COVID-19 transmission depends on implementing other aggressive actions, which have already been adopted companywide. We continue to actively monitor CDC guidance, as well as that of state and local health authorities, and are immediately taking all necessary actions to protect our employees,” the Smithfield statement said.
The Tyson Foods company has implemented new work safety measures, including facial masks and plastic work station dividers, in the hope of preventing the spread of the COVID-19 disease at its meatpacking plants. Photo: Courtesy Tyson Foods
In addition to Smithfield, South Dakota is home to 28 other meat processing plants that are inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and therefore allowed to sell products across state lines. As of April 29, nine cases of COVID-19 had been reported at the DemKota beef processing plant in Aberdeen, but no other positive cases were reported at other plants. The DemKota plant remains open.
Public health experts say at least some of the COVID-19 cases and meatpacking shutdowns could have been prevented if regulators and industry officials had taken the threat of disease among food workers more seriously.
“I think a lot of essential workers are facing risks, and when it comes to meatpacking, they would be at inordinate risk just simply based on how crowded the conditions are.”
Dr. Melissa Perry, an occupational health researcher with George Washington University
Perry, who spent several years researching cutting injuries at pork processing plants in Iowa and Nebraska, said public health researchers have been concerned about the spread of disease in meatpacking plants for years. The conditions that tend to create a higher risk for cut injuries — workers standing close together, a grueling pace and incentives to never miss a day of work — also put workers at an increased risk of contracting and spreading airborne diseases such as COVID-19.
“It's not surprising at all,” Perry said of the COVID-19 outbreaks in packing plants. “I think a lot of essential workers are facing risks, and when it comes to meatpacking, they would be at inordinate risk just simply based on how crowded the conditions are.”
However, there may be ways to quickly, safely and efficiently re-open shuttered meatpacking plants, Perry said. Line speeds can be slowed, meatpacking workers can be given priority for universal testing and access to government stockpiles of protective equipment, she said.
Such actions, though, will need federal requirements and enforcement, Berkowitz said.
“The 3,000 workers sick and 17 dead in the meatpacking industry is proof positive that voluntary compliance does not work in this industry and that there needs to be mandates,” Berkowitz said. “The reason it’s spread in that plant in Sioux Falls and in so many other meatpacking plants is that the companies prioritize profits over public health.”
A dangerous industry before COVID-19
Government data show that meatpacking plants are among the most dangerous workplaces in the country. In South Dakota over the past five years, major meat processors in the state have reported 16 hospitalizations due to workplace injuries and six amputations, most of which were fingers, according to a national severe injury database maintained by OSHA.
The fact the plants have become hot spots for COVID-19 was not surprising, said Rod Rehm, a Lincoln, Neb., attorney who has specialized in representing injured workers in lawsuits against meatpacking plants.
“They work in a dense workplace, and they wear different kinds of protective clothing, but I don’t think any of it is designed to protect them from breathing on each other or protecting against the coronavirus,” he said.
“There are a lot of efforts taken to discourage reporting, and to make workers feel that they’re going to be treated poorly if they do report injuries and illnesses or seek treatment.”
Rod Rehm, attorney
Rehm said that meatpacking companies he has sued often tried to minimize worker injuries or pressure workers to not report injuries or file complaints about unsafe working conditions.
“There are a lot of efforts taken to discourage reporting, and to make workers feel that they’re going to be treated poorly if they do report injuries and illnesses or seek treatment,” he said. "They’re going to be petrified to report anything. They always face ostracization, being treated differently by supervisors, even up to deportation.”
For workers who do become ill or injured, meatpackers often do what they can to keep workers on the lines, Rehm said.
“They have these little health clinics set up in packaging plants designed to treat symptoms and send them back to work,” Rehm said. “If workers do decide to report injuries, the companies all go to great lengths to send employees to doctors who favor the employers.”
A spokesperson for the Unified Food and Commercial Workers union Local 304a, which represents workers at the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, said the plant has a robust system for reporting injuries and that workers can actually be fired for not reporting an on-the-job injury. The spokesperson, who declined to be named citing a national union directive, said there have been no recent complaints lodged against the plant's health clinic.
Until the 1970s, the meatpacking industry was home to a highly skilled workforce in which many employees were essentially butchers who broke down an entire animal, Rehm said. The introduction of the cutting line created a system of repetitive actions in which workers focused much more on speed and production, often making workplaces less safe. The plants also began to attract a workforce of immigrants who often feel powerless to demand safety improvements or report injuries or illnesses, Rehm said.
“It leads to the conditions where you have people on the margins who do hard physical work and don’t get paid a lot,” he said. “It’s a significant portion of the packing plants that are made up of immigrant labor, and the companies damn well know it.”
Threat of airborne disease ignored
As early as 2009, federal public health officials began to consider the idea that an airborne virus could wreak havoc inside essential workplaces such as hospitals, police departments and food-processors. That spring, a new strain of influenza known as H1N1, or swine flu swept the planet, causing the first flu pandemic in more than 40 years, according to the CDC.
Workers stand close to one another during some parts of the pork processing process in American plants. Photo: Courtesy USDA
The swine flu actually affected people under the age of 65 more strongly because they had never been exposed to a similar virus. Schools considered precautionary closures and the CDC warned that as much as 40% of the American workforce could be sidelined due to the illness.
By November of 2009, a vaccine for the swine flu was in circulation and the pandemic was declared over in August 2010.
While large scale economic shutdowns were avoided during the swine flu pandemic, public health officials in the U.S. treated the incident as a warning for pandemics to come and began developing new ways to handle the spread of airborne viruses. Among those efforts was a push at OSHA to develop rules aimed at preventing the spread of airborne disease and potential shutdowns at critical industries, such as healthcare and food production. The airborne pathogen standard was close to being finalized in 2016, Perry said, but the rules were killed and never revisited.
The CDC did create some pandemic flu-focused guides for employers, the latest versions of which were published in 2017. The CDC guidance includes such advice as encouraging sick workers to stay home, creating a plan to keep workers at least three feet apart and creating a plan to allow workers to stay home longer if they get sick or need to take care of sick family members. While the focus of the CDC guidance is on a flu pandemic, the principles apply to any airborne virus.
Guidelines, though, don’t obligate employers to do anything, and when it comes to the meatpacking industry, they largely didn’t, until COVID-19 started killing workers.
“Most companies just had general workplace policies in place for the health and safety of their workers,” Young said. “People that work in the meat processing industry are given personal protective equipment to wear depending on the job they are performing but those usually do not include face masks.”
The U.S. Government Accountability Office signaled in a study in 2005 that meatpacking plants needed to improve worker safety, and the GAO reported again in 2016 and 2017 that meatpacking plants had worker illness rates that were four times higher than in other manufacturing sectors. Those reports also noted that meatpacking workers felt discouraged by plant officials from reporting injury or illness, and that medical protocols in plants were outdated or inefficient.
Over the past four years, meat packing companies have sought dozens of waivers seeking to speed up their processing lines. Some pork plants are processing as many as 1,100 animals per hour. During the current pandemic, chicken processing plants have sought 11 separate waivers seeking to allow plants to move 140 chickens per minute through their lines. The pace forces workers to work shoulder to shoulder to keep up.
Working so closely together makes the spread of disease more likely, said Dr. William Schaffner, a public health expert and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.
“By and large, the working conditions are far from ideal for personal health,” Schaffner said. “There’s a lot of intense work and they work very closely together.”
“Did we take it seriously? I didn't, and it was the same for most of my co-workers.”
Achut Deng, Smithfield employee
A CDC investigation of the Sioux Falls Smithfield plant, after it was shut down in April due to its COVID-19 outbreak, also found that workers were forced to pack tightly together in order to punch in for their shifts, take breaks or use their lockers. When social-distancing recommendations were made to fight COVID-19, Smithfield workers say they simply couldn’t follow the advice and still do their jobs.
“The union did give us awareness about washing hands and to try to keep a social distance,” said Achut Deng, who has worked at the Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls for six years. “It was too hard to do that because, at my workplace, people are working shoulder to shoulder.”
Deng said some workers weren’t all that worried about the threat of disease spreading through their ranks prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after the disease started shutting down businesses across the country, workers at Smithfield said they didn’t give it much thought.
“Did we take it seriously? I didn't, and it was the same for most of my co-workers,” said Deng, who tested positive for COVID-19 on April 4.
The fact that workers weren’t all that concerned about COVID-19 points to another challenge for public health in the meatpacking industry — its diverse workforce, said Perry, the GWU researcher.
Meatpacking relies heavily on immigrant labor. Nationally, about a third of the industry’s workforce are immigrants, so multiple languages can be spoken in any given plant. In some of the packing plants Perry was researching in, as many as 10 different languages were spoken, she said. At the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, as many as 40 different languages are spoken.
Illnesses, such as the flu or COVID-19, also tend to spread among lower-income populations, such as the many immigrants who work at Smithfield and other meat plants, Schaffner said. Due to low pay, many meat plant workers often live in cramped quarters that allow for the spread of viruses at both home and in the workplace. Many also do not have adequate access to health care, he said.
To date, there are no rules that require employers to make sure their employees can actually understand the information they’re distributing about the threat of disease. In fact, the CDC investigators dispatched to Sioux Falls noted in their April 23 report that when Smithfield workers started being sent home sick with COVID-19 symptoms in March, they were given packets of information about what to do next but the information was only printed in English.
“When we're talking about infection control and information, the plants have to be responsible for translating all of that information into languages that workers will understand,” Perry said.
The way meat processors have incentivised workers to stay on the job at all costs has likely contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the industry, Perry said. The Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, for example, offered employees a $500 bonus if they didn’t miss a day of work during the pandemic before it shut down. However, employees were told if they were sent home due to COVID-19, they would still be eligible for the payment. Smithfield wasn’t alone in offering such bonuses.
From a disease control standpoint, attendance bonuses are a bad idea, Perry said. They encourage employees to come to work whether they feel ill or not. In the case of COVID-19, a disease for which as many as 80% of infected people will show only mild symptoms — if they show any symptoms at all — incentivising even mildly sick workers to keep punching in has the potential to spread a disease far and wide among workers.
“Any kind of policy that disincentivizes people taking time off for sickness is going to increase risk for infection in the plants,” Perry said. “Those practices have to be really redesigned to ensure that they're not incentivizing sick people to come to work.”
Now, Americans are being told to brace for widespread shortages or much higher prices for pork, beef and even chicken — the country’s main sources of protein. On April 24, Tyson Foods, one of the four major meatpacking companies in the U.S., took out a full-page ad in the New York Times saying the nation’s food supply chain is breaking down. U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, called the situation a “food crisis” in an April 26 letter to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.
As much as 30% of America's pork processing capacity, as well as up to 25% of the nation’s beef processing capacity, has been shut down due to plant closures as the disease has run rampant among workers. The meat processing slowdown has caused a backlog of animals waiting to be sent to a processor and has farmers wrestling with the prospect of euthanizing millions of animals that can’t be sold.
In his letter, Rounds said the number of cattle, pigs and chickens at farms and ranches across the country was at a breaking point and called for immediate federal action to protect food workers before packing plants can reopen, and to help farmers euthanize and dispose of unsellable livestock.
“The inability to develop a commonsense national plan to protect food workers and public health, while simultaneously operating the nation’s critical food infrastructure, is failing farmers, ranchers, food workers and consumers,” Rounds said.
Citing threats to the American food supply due to plant closures, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on April 28 that used the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing as a critical industry and order packing plants to remain open during the pandemic.
Changes needed to enhance safety
Public health experts say there are several things federal regulators and the meat packing industry need to do before reopening closed processing plants. One of the first things is creating a broad, federally coordinated testing program so sick workers can be identified quickly and sent home to recover before spreading the disease, Perry said.
“These are essential workers, and in order for essential workers to perform their jobs safely, they have to be working in an environment that is virus free,” Perry said. “In order to know whether or not the environment is virus free, people have to be tested.”
Meatpackers also will need to slow down their production lines, spread workers out on their lines and find new ways to keep workers at least six feet apart when they’re at lunch or taking a break.
“Given the pace at which work proceeds in meatpacking, you have to ensure that workers are given adequate breaks, adequate protections, adequate guidance as to how they can perform their work safely and, in this context with infections, adequate access to water sanitation and hygiene,” Perry said.
Schaffner said OSHA, as the principal workplace safety regulator, must engage in a process of adopting CDC guidelines as regulations, but that he expects improvements will come slowly.
“Try to get them to move on any issue; it’s not easy,” he said. “In public health, it’s not a steady stream of improvement. It’s two steps forward, one step back; two steps forward, one step back, and you have to keep on keeping on.”
Congress has signaled at least some interest in changing workplace safety regulations to include COVID-19. In early March, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives submitted a bill that would require OSHA to develop an emergency “infectious disease exposure control plan to protect employees” in health care and other at-risk industries. Action on that bill likely will take months.
In the meantime, without firm regulations in place regarding COVID-19 and other airborne diseases, meatpacking companies large and small are making worker safety decisions on their own.
Bruce Anderson, owner of Western Buffalo Company in Rapid City, said he took it upon himself to provide face masks to his employees and to urge them to ride separately to work, though he acknowledges some employees have ignored his suggestions. He has also monitored employee illnesses and required workers to stay home if sick.
“We’re paying attention to this, and we’re not going to let something bad happen,” Anderson said.
Before closing down, the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, too, made an effort to improve worker safety. As noted in the CDC investigators’ report, plant managers installed barriers between workstations and at lunch tables, began checking worker temperatures before they started their shifts and put more effort into sanitizing non-work spaces.
Anderson said he expects the meatpacking industry will make major improvements to prevent future worker illnesses.
“The packing industry will address this and do a good job; they will spread these people out,” Anderson said. “They’re going to take a harder look at robotics after this, I can guarantee you that. I know the industry will react favorably to this.”
In the longer term, federal regulators will need to get more aggressive, Berkowitz said.
Meatpackers such as Smithfield, JBS, Tyson and Cargill will have to spend money to expand and alter plants to protect workers from COVID-19 or any other airborne illnesses that come along. For the time being, tents may have to be erected next to plants to provide workers with a safe environment during the unregulated periods in which they are on break or in lockers rooms, she said.
“They [CDC] essentially said they have to redo their whole plants so they can keep workers six feet apart on the lines and throughout the plants,” Berkowitz said. “You’re going to see a second wave of this virus in Sioux Falls if they [meatpackers] don’t change the way they do business.”
by Kris Frerk, President of Southeast South Dakota Tourism
In this May 2018 Gazette photo, the cliffs of Devil's Gulch can be seen with the creek flowing past.
Our daily life schedules came to an abrupt change about two months ago. We have all been quarantined to different degrees depending on our age and essential/nonessential jobs. We are all very cautious and maybe somewhat a little fearful of where we pick up from here.
As the State of South Dakota and our major cities start with soft openings this week, we can start to think about summer vacation plans. It is maybe a little early yet to know what June & July are going to be like but we can start making some tentative plans.
This week is National Travel & Tourism Week-South Dakota Tourism's motto for this event is "Spirit of Travel." As President of Southeast South Dakota Tourism Association (SSDTA) I’m asking you to consider supporting our state destinations for one of your vacations this summer or fall. Tourism is the second largest industry in South Dakota led by Agriculture. Last year South Dakota had 14.5 million visitors that spent $4.1 billion in our state. This revenue gave each South Dakota citizen a tax savings of $890. Our state economy has taken a serious hit due to the lack of travel that has not taken place and also due to the closure/ limited hours of many business in South Dakota. We need to jump start our economy. As destinations and businesses open soon, I encourage you in the next couple months to plan a state vacation or some staycations in our region.
You might ask what is a "staycation"? In the tourism industry that refers to a period in which an individual or family stays home and participates in leisure activities within driving distance of your home and does not require an overnight stay. A staycation is a good option in this early period that will get us out of the house to enjoy some outdoor destinations.
We have some beautiful parks in this region that can be excellent options for water activities, hiking, biking, picnics, camping, etc. Sometimes we tend to overlook the ones that are closest to us. Great park options are Good Earth State Park, Palisades State Park, Adams Homestead & State Nature Preserve, Lewis & Clark Recreation Area, Porter Sculpture Park, and Lake Herman State Park. These are just a few examples of some wonderful parks.
There are endless possibilities in Sioux Falls that you can do outside. Sioux Falls Parks, bike trail, Sculpture Walk, Arc of Dreams, Great Plains Zoo, golf courses and Outdoor Campus. Thunder Road is currently open for mini golf and the rest of the outdoor park they anticipate opening soon. Thunder Road has a $6 million indoor addition that should be opening sometime in July. The addition includes laser tag, state of the art bowling games, bumper cars, restaurant and many options for group gatherings.
Mitchell has some great options for day events. Corn Palace, Prehistoric Indian Village, parks and the soon to open Starlite Outdoor Drive-In Theater. Check Prehistoric Indian Village for updates on opening.
I highly encourage you to start planning your vacations or staycations now. The Southeast South Dakota Tourism office is eager to send you a Travel Guide. Our Wine, Brew & Spirits Trail map is a great option for summer drives. Together we can make a positive impact on our hotels, destinations, restaurants, bars, boutiques, local businesses and their employees. In conjunction with National Tourism Week, Southeast South Dakota Tourism has a Kayak Contest Giveaway. You can enter on the website until 6/22/20 at www.southeastsouthdakota.com, or call 888-353-7382 for details. To get a state travel guide go to SDvisit.com. I'm also available to answer any questions you may have regarding tourism in our region. Get out and experience Great Faces & Great Places!
Finally, follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, there’s something new from our 200 members every day!
SIOUX FALLS – Distancing, telephonic input and June elections were three main concerns when the Minnehaha County Commission met on Tuesday, April 28.
Once again the Minnehaha County Commission has rearranged the commission room for fewer people. At the last meeting, the podium used to address commissioners was roped off, and most of the department heads called into the meeting. Commissioners pictured from left to right are Jean Bender, Dean Karsky and Cindy Heiberger. Maggie Gillespie from the State's Attorney's office is seated at the table. Commissioners Jeff Barth and Gerald Beninga were only present telephonically for the meeting. (Photo by Dave Baumeister)
With the coronavirus outbreak, commissioners have been holding marathon meetings every other week, instead of their usual weekly meetings.
This week, department heads were encouraged to call in, as opposed to showing up in person.
Even Assistant County Administrator Craig Dewey, whose office is adjacent to the meeting room, and who, at times, was seen wearing a mask and bringing in different items to the room, went to his office and phoned in when his input was needed during specific agenda items.
The commission made it official to combine the postponed Sioux Falls city and school district vote with the county, state and federal primary elections to be held Tuesday, June 2.
They also entered into an agreement to combine elections for the county with the West Central, Garretson and Baltic school districts.
And to accomplish all of this, Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz made a plea for people to help as poll workers at that election.
Currently, Litz said he believes he will need more workers than usual, since so many area elections are being combined, but if people continue to accept South Dakota Secretary of State Steve Barnett’s offer to mail out absentee ballots, there may not be as many as expected at the polls on election day.
Last week, every registered voter in the state should have received an application for a mail-in absentee ballot that will need to be sent into their county auditor, should people want to avoid showing up for in-person voting on June 2.
After only a week, Litz said his office has received over 4,000 applications for primary election ballots, and another 3,700 have been received for Sioux Falls city and school voting.
But regardless of how many votes are mailed in, Litz still expects needing plenty of people to help separate ballots for Democrats, Republicans, Minnehaha residents living in Sioux Falls, county residents living outside of the city but still within the Sioux Falls School District, and county residents residing in the West Central, Garretson or Baltic school districts.
People interested in helping as poll workers should contact Litz at (605) 367-4220.
These are paid positions.
At the Tuesday, April 28 Minnehaha County Commission meeting, Commission Administrator Carol Muller modeled a lovely deep blue pants suit, complete with matching coronavirus face mask! (Photo by Dave Baumeister)
Burn, Baby Burn… anyplace but here!
Commissioners voted 4-1 to enact a temporary burn ban in the county.
Recently, county fire departments have had to respond to 53 structure fires.
The ban was offered up by Emergency Management Director Jason Gearman on behalf of all area fire chiefs.
He said that current conditions of dealing with the coronavirus have made it even more difficult to fight fires.
Commissioner Cindy Heiberger, the lone person to vote against the measure, felt that with rain in the forecast for this week, they should hold off on any county-wide ban.
However, Commissioner Gerald Beninga felt that because there was such wide support from the firefighters and emergency management, a temporary ban would be prudent.
Three other commissioners agreed with Beninga and a temporary ban was put in place just until the next meeting on May 12, when the burn ban will come up for discussion again.
To open or not?
Commissioners also spent a great deal of time trying to decide what to do with Wall Lake.
The discussion started with Parks Director Scott Anderson informing them of possible problems with his usual group of seasonal workers.
He explained that many of those workers are over 65 years of age and subject to Gov. Kristi Noem’s “stay at home” order for vulnerable populations.
Although there was no clear direction given from the commission, they talked in depth about what to do about county parks, mainly Wall Lake, as far as opening parking lots and restroom facilities.
The consensus of the commission seemed to be that Anderson should proceed however he thinks is best.
The next meeting of the Minnehaha County Commission will be on Tuesday, May 12, at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the county administration building at 6th and Minnesota Ave. in Sioux Falls.
These meetings are open to all, and public comment is usually encouraged, although for people wanting to attend, currently, the only way into the building is at the entrance on the west side of the building, and the number of people allowed into the main commission chamber at any one time is limited.
Editor's Note: This article was initially released via our website on 4/29/20, and has some minor modifications and updates, such as Chester's current plans for their graduation.
The Garretson School board met in a special session on Tuesday, April 28th at 6 p.m.
The first item of this special meeting was to hire a new teacher. The board approved the hiring of Jeena Lentz as a new second grade teacher for the district.
Next was the first big topic of the meeting, school lunches and food services during this COVID-19 crisis. The contract with Thrive Nutrition Services ends soon. The Request for Proposals for a new lunch services company was only just issued. Meanwhile the school is serving between 160-170 meals per day. Most students from in town pick up their meals during the day, but others are being delivered across the district.
“Our district patrons have really utilized this service and we’d like to continue this service throughout the end of June at least,” said Superintendent Guy Johnson.
Board member Kari Flanagan said that she felt it was absolutely essential to many students and district families to keep this service going during this crisis.
Supt. Johnson proposed that the school would take over paying the wages of school lunch staff directly, paying them at their current hourly salary rate as temporary employees of the district. He wanted the board’s approval for this so that when June payroll was released for approval they would understand where the expense would be coming from.
The board heartily approved the request, wanting this service to continue for district students and families. Board president Shannon Nordstrom asked about food commodities and how that might affect the RFP or new contract from a new entity. Supt. Johnson said that they would be doing a full inventory after the termination of Thrive’s services and that no food would go to waste.
The next item on the board’s agenda was the big one, talking about changing the date of graduation for the district.
Board President Nordstrom started the discussion.
“With COVID-19, we’ve had to cancel a lot of events and activities. Prom, FFA trip, Track & Field sporting events, the school’s band and choir trip,” he said. “A lot of events that we would have rather have had, and a disruption to normal life as we do it. Things have been dramatically different this year. So, with that we’re going to talk about graduation. This is pretty personal to me as I have a student getting ready to graduate this year, but I’ll put my personal feelings to one side and we’ll have some good discussion as to what we should do. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Long will talk about some proposals and plans and we’ll go from there.”
Supt. Johnson said that they’ve been looking at what to do about graduation since shutdowns were announced, and he yielded the floor to HS Principal Chris Long to talk about it.
Long talked about wanting to have all the senior class members gathered together in one place, one last time, and the difficulties it would present. He said that his first meeting on Zoom with students more than a month ago had 44 grads and maybe 30 different ideas as to what should be done. Meeting with area Principals, also via Zoom, he said that only about 12 had plans and the rest were up in the air. As an example, he said, Dells planned a virtual graduation and Chester planned to do things at their foot- ball field. (Chester is actually hoping for a normal ceremony, but has backup plans for a drive through ceremony.)
He said that consensus was difficult. Many wanted to have it as soon as possible and others wanted to push it back as far as possible, into August, September or even October. He sent out surveys, and had 94 returned. He said that it was just like a bell curve, most rounding in about the middle in July. However, because one student will be joining the armed forces and leaving for basic training by July 5, Long said he’d prefer to have graduation sooner to accommodate that student. One idea he suggested would be to host the graduation outside at the football complex, to accommodate for more space for people to attend safely. So, his recommendation was Saturday, June 20, probably to be held at the football field, maybe in the evening under the lights. He said he’d love nothing more than to do a traditional graduation at the school, and that anything else would be a compromise, but that he just didn’t know if it would be possible.
Long said that after the Governor’s press briefing that morning he was only more confused as to when people would be free and clear to resume life as normal. The problem, he said, is that information shifts day to day, week to week and they just didn’t know.
Board member Ruth Sarar asked about weather conditions, as in what to do if it rained on that June 20th day. Long said that fallback dates would most certainly be in place if that was the case.
Board member Tony Martens asked what it would look like.
“Are we going to have the kids five yards apart on the football field then, from this plan you’re proposing?” Martens asked.
“Yeah that’s pretty much it,” said Long. “We’d have the kids on the field, separated like that and families seated in groups in small clusters, family groups that live together in the same house seated together, able to maintain distance from each other. The good thing about being outdoors is that more people could attend. People could come in cars and we’re talking about an FM transmitter to broadcast to radios and Mr. Schrank can make it broadcast on the Alliance channel as well. Not everybody will have the best or most perfect view, but it would be one potential way to get it done. This is based on the scenario of what would we do today if we had to do it. If the restrictions ease, I would be more than happy to do a traditional graduation.“
Long said that his goal was to make sure the graduates had the opportunity to gather together one last time for the graduation ceremony. Plans were not finalized as to how exactly it would happen. If the situation improves, they could have it at the school in the traditional manner, but if the situation worsens by June and we get a full lockdown, that’ll be another story.
Long said that the school has to abide by whatever restrictions the South Dakota State and County health departments require of them for the health and safety of their students.
At this point he requested that the board modify the calendar to set a new date for graduations, set a goal out there, and if it has to change, it does. This all being said, he felt that June 20th would be the best date in his opinion and that hopefully, some level of normality would been restored by then.
Board member Flanagan was concerned about students going onto post-secondary education and if a delay in graduation, even to June 20th, would be bad for students.
Long said that sending school transcripts out to institutions would not be an issue, as they would have school transcripts prepared and sent off to whatever institutions they needed to get to by May 25th or 26th, as usual.
The board then discussed the issue of moving graduation to the proposed June 20th date. Board President Nordstrom said that his personal opinion is that later would be better, and that he was one of those that thought August would be a good idea. However, he cited that he would support moving the date to June 20th because of his respect for a young man who is volunteering to serve his country, and not wishing to deprive that person of the opportunity to graduate with his classmates.
The board’s consensus was to get a date picked, and then do the best the district could to make it happen. Having the event in the evening under the lights was dismissed as a viable option, because by then the days would be long, and dusk wouldn’t occur until after 8:45 p.m. Keeping it at 1 p.m. was decided to be the best option.
The board voted to approve the change in the school calendar, moving graduation ceremonies to June 20th at 1 p.m. While the possibility of having the ceremony held at the school gym was not seriously discussed, they did not set a final location, as everyone hoped that restrictions and recommendations from federal, state and local officials might be relaxed.
Nordstrom said that realistically, the board and administration will need to work with whatever situation presented itself at that time. He said that there have been indications that the state will open up at least partially by that time, but that nothing is known for sure.
On Monday, the Garretson City Council faced the choice between extending Ordinance 655, which limited patrons to 10 or less at businesses such as restaurants, or voting to approve a new ordinance which has much lower restrictions. The council opted to allow 655 to lapse, and voted unanimously for Ordinance 656. Garretson restaurants and food establishments can now host up to 6 legal adults in a party (minors are not counted), and up to as many parties as their capacity, with 6-foot distancing between parties, will allow. Entertainment and recreational facilities can host up to 50% of its maximum capacity, and all other businesses are encouraged to continue to maintain social distancing procedures.
The council also voted to re-open the City’s parks, including playground equipment, picnic shelters, camping, and sanitary facilities, with signage posted to encourage CDC protocols to continue.
Everything is to take effect immediately.
While all estimates state that South Dakota (and especially Minnehaha County) is not yet past its peak infection rate for the novel coronavirus, the release of Governor Noem’s “Back to Work” initiative, announced last week, has made it difficult for South Dakota to continue imposing strict regulations within its towns and cities.
When citywide restrictions were applied at the end of March, South Dakota had only seen 30 cases of COVID-19 and one death. Cases were not yet increasing exponentially, and Italy, which was suffering the worst of any country at that point, seemed very far away. It was hoped that by implementing strict regulations on gathering, that the number of cases could be mitigated.
By the next week, however, cases had started increasing rapidly. By April 5, it started an exponential climb. Between April 12 and April 18, an outbreak at Smithfield Foods was becoming apparent as cases suddenly jumped, surpassing 100 new cases per day. Two weeks out from that, the numbers of cases have started leveling off, dropping down to around 50 new cases per day.
While over 16,000 people in South Dakota have tested negative so far, per Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon, the state has a capacity to process 3,000 tests per day. As of Friday, May 1, the state was not seeing that level.
Testing is not currently including antibody testing, which is showing whether someone has already had the virus, even if they tested negative. While hospitals around the state have started offering it, antibody testing is not yet widespread in South Dakota. Antibody testing has not yet been proven as effective proof of immunity, but signs are growing that some immunity is conferred. Per the FDA, more widespread data is needed in order to confirm this. The SD Department of Health is continuing to tell people who have tested positive for antibodies to continue social distancing, masking, handwashing, and other mitigation behaviors, because false positives, fraudulent testing, and antibody cross-reactivity in testing to other coronaviruses may exist.
The major outbreaks of COVID-19 have been in Minnehaha, Lincoln, Brown, and Union Counties. The majority of South Dakota has a sprinkling of cases here and there, with many counties containing no currently active cases, which means that mitigation has worked in the more rural areas of the state. In Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties, however, the story is different. Most of the cases are still centered in these two counties, which means that risk of transmission is still high. With Garretson in Minnehaha County, the city’s residents need to ensure they continue to take precautions.
“We are not Sioux Falls,” said Mayor Greg Beaner during Monday night’s council meeting, “but we’re related to Sioux Falls. People work and shop there.”
However, as for the number of active or recovered cases in Garretson, that data is unknown. While the Gazette has heard of a couple possible cases in the past month, none have been confirmed. The state is only releasing numbers by county, and not by zip code, and the governor is refusing to release those numbers.
The mayor let the council know this was not helping Garretson. While resources may be an issue regarding why data is not being drilled down, it is still frustrating, because right now the council is left just guessing due of lack of information, he said.
However, following the example of Sioux Falls, which had a first reading on a new ordinance on Friday that increased business capacity, the Garretson City Council voted unanimously to increase Garretson business capacity as well. Garretson did not have to have a second reading on its ordinance due to a public health-oriented ordinance that is on the books.
The Garretson City Council passed Ordinance 656, which relaxes some restrictions on businesses within the City limits, allowing them to operate somewhat closer to normal, while still taking into consideration pandemic mitigation measures. The Garretson School Board discussed options for graduation, stating that while they'd like to have a normal ceremony, they will have to follow state and federal guidelines, and discussed plans to use the football field if this is not possible. They moved the date of graduation to June. We also take a look at several farmers' issues, including pandemic disaster relief efforts, ethanol, and more. Plus, more Class of 2020 spotlights and a message from Mayor Greg Beaner with some good news. Read your issue today!
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EROS experienced a moment of turkey turmoil Thursday morning (April 16) that ended in a broken window near the main door, pieces of glass scattered throughout the front entrance, and a dead bird on the floor.
Shortly after 9 a.m., Bob Smith with the security staff was driving along the loop from the guard station out front towards the W-5 entrance on the west side of the Center when he caught an unfolding drama out of the corner of his eye.
To his right, two turkeys were running full bore towards the Center. “What the heck?” Smith thought to himself when he saw a fox come galloping out of the weeds.
As Smith stopped to watch, the turkey in the lead took flight, gaining altitude as it went soaring over the building. The second turkey, however, appeared headed in a straight line as it lifted off and wasn’t getting any elevation at all, Smith said.
He’s going to run into the building if he doesn’t start climbing, Smith thought. And two to three seconds after that, “this turkey had to be going 25-30 miles per hour in the air,” he said. “When he hit that window, he just went through it like a bullet.”
At an estimated 20 to 30 pounds, the bird was traveling so fast that even after hitting the double-paned window, it traveled another 20-plus yards before skidding to a halt inside the building. Needless to say, it did not survive. The collision was so intense, Smith said, that pieces of glass were littered all the way to Robin Koopman’s Facility Management Office and beyond into the atrium.
Smith said he was not aware of any damage to displays or other items in or near the front entrance. With most people working these days from home and no public tours, there were few people in the building and no apparent injuries.
Turkeys are no stranger to the EROS campus. They have been known to damage dark-colored vehicles in the parking lots, and gather outside door entrances and windows, often leaving messes. Smith said he’s counted as many as 40 turkeys gathered together, though he said there are many more than that.
