The HOA Cut The Trees By My Lake Ranch — So I Built A Hog Farm That Blocked Their View And Their Air.
My name is Sten Osland, and before Constance Tras ever pointed at my father’s trees, my family had already spent 78 years learning how Iowa land remembers.
My grandfather, Olaf Osland, bought our East Okoboji Lake parcel in 1947 with $4,200 saved from nine years at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota.
The onion-skin closing papers still sit in our deed box on the parlor mantle beside my grandmother’s confirmation photograph and a tin of buttons from her wedding dress.
I am 67 years old, unmarried, and retired after 28 years as an Iowa State University Extension swine specialist.
I authored 14 peer-reviewed papers on hog production economics, manure management, and CAFO regulatory compliance.
I also earned a master’s in agricultural law from Drake University Law School at age 46 because I got tired of needing someone else to translate the Iowa Administrative Code for me.
My sister Hilda Osland is 65, and after her husband Escoll Halverson died in 2018, she and I kept the family Herford cow-calf operation running together.
Our niece Helena is 38 and works as an Iowa State University Extension agricultural extension agent for Dickinson and Emmet counties.
Her husband, Bejarn, is 40, a large-animal veterinarian in Spirit Lake, and the kind of man who checks a gate latch twice even when he knows he closed it the first time.
The shelter belt along our western line was not decoration.
My father planted it in 1965 in three rows of cottonwoods, burr oaks, and Norway spruce, with Iowa State Extension guidance and my mother’s hands packing soil around the root balls.
For 60 years, those trees broke the wind, held snow, protected pasture, and kept our working ranch separated from whatever the world wanted to build next door.
The world arrived in the spring of 2018 as Lakeshore Vista at East Okoboji, a 110-home luxury recreational development south of our land.
In 2021, a 49-year-old woman named Constance Tras became the Lakeshore Vista HOA president.
She drove a pearl white Lincoln Navigator with a vanity plate that read Connie T.
Her husband, Dorian Tras, owned Tras Heritage Forestry LLC, which specialized in residential tree clearance, easement line maintenance, and view enhancement for HOA-governed developments around the Iowa Great Lakes.
Constance’s first letter came in May of 2022.
She asked me to consider selective canopy management along our western shelter belt to restore sunset views for Lakeshore Vista members.
I wrote back politely and explained that the shelter belt was registered under the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Forestry Bureau’s shelter belt inventory program.
I told her it had been planted by my father in 1965 and that no canopy management was contemplated.
Her second letter came in October of 2022 and requested complete removal of the obstructive overstory along what she called the eastern Lakeshore Vista boundary.
I wrote back again and enclosed the survey showing a recorded 40-foot road easement between their development and our western section line.
I also explained that the trees were entirely on Osland land and that the HOA had no standing to request their removal.
Her third letter in March of 2023 recommended that I engage a qualified regional contractor with HOA-adjacent landowner experience for a complimentary canopy assessment.
The recommended contractor was her husband’s company.
That was when irritation became research.
I drove into Spirit Lake the following Tuesday and pulled every Tras Heritage Forestry filing at the Dickinson County Recorder’s Office for the previous five years.
There were 31 clearance permits.
Twenty-six involved properties adjacent to recreational HOA developments.
Twenty-two specifically targeted mature windbreaks planted between 1955 and 1980, the exact kind of post-Dust Bowl conservation infrastructure Iowa farm families had built to make the land livable.
I went to see Wendell Brimstead, a 68-year-old retired Iowa State Patrol trooper near Trillium Bay.
He listened to me for an hour, set down his coffee, and told me he had lost his father’s 1958 windbreak in February of 2021 while he was at his mother’s funeral in Sioux Falls.
By the time he got home, 420 mature trees were gone.
Tras Heritage Forestry had billed the HOA $38,000.
Wendell had photographs, the original 1958 planting plan, a shelter belt inventory record, the clearance invoice, and a 50-page binder of soil moisture readings his father had recorded from 1962 until a stroke in 2004.
He took me to the old cut line.
The stumps were gray, the ground was cracked, and the wind smelled like dust and old grease.
He rested his palm on one stump and did not speak.
That silence told me more than the invoice.
Helena helped me build the file.
By August of 2023, she had identified 18 prior Iowa landowners across Dickinson, Emmet, Clay, Palo Alto, O’Brien, and Buena Vista counties who had lost shelter belt windbreaks to Tras Heritage Forestry clearances.
Fourteen agreed to provide sworn statements.
Two had passed away.
Two declined for personal reasons.
My attorney, Aldrich Ecklund of Ecklund and Associates in Spirit Lake, held the statements in escrow.
Aldrich had represented me for 31 years, from Extension consulting agreements to Iowa Pork Producers Association service contracts to the paperwork for my Drake agricultural law degree.
He read slowly, which is what a good lawyer does when the facts are already angry.
In January of 2024, he set the file on his desk and said the pattern looked like an Iowa Department of Justice Consumer Protection case.
He also said it could become federal if we had a mail fraud predicate.
The public filings existed.
The victims existed.
The business records existed.
What we did not yet have was the Tras family acting against us openly, on the record, in a way that connected the HOA, the forestry company, and the mail.
So we waited.
Waiting is not passivity when you are farming.
While Constance wrote letters and Lakeshore Vista complained about views, I reopened the plan I had carried in one form or another since 2014.
It was a 4,800-head hog confinement operation on our western upland.
I had presented preliminary engineering for that operation at the 2014 Iowa Pork Congress as a case study in modern CAFO design.
Every three years, I had updated the engineering specifications.
The 120 acres of A1 agricultural land on the western upland were the obvious site, and the Iowa CFO setback rules worked.
The only reason I had never pushed the project politically was the shelter belt.
As long as those trees stood, they were proof of good-neighbor practice.
They shielded Lakeshore Vista from what our agricultural operation looked like, smelled like, and legally was.
Iowa Code Chapter 657A matters because it says properly zoned agricultural operations cannot be enjoined as nuisances by adjacent residential property owners just because the neighbors dislike ordinary farm impacts.
The residential development came to the farm, not the other way around.
If Constance removed the buffer herself, she would not weaken my position.
She would strengthen it.
On Tuesday, October 14th, the air was 43 degrees and clear, and the southwest wind moved at 12 mph.
I had been awake since 4:30 and on the porch since 5 with black coffee and my annotated Iowa Code Chapter 657A volume.
Hilda came out at 6 with a second thermos and a slice of rhubarb strawberry pie.
“Sten,” she said, “today?”
“I think so,” I said.
She nodded and went back inside to take her place at the kitchen island.
At 8:15, the October issue of the Lakeshore Vista HOA newsletter arrived in our mailbox by rural mail delivery.
Page 7 announced that the HOA had secured arrangements with Tras Heritage Forestry LLC for a communitywide canopy enhancement project beginning Tuesday, October 14th, that would improve long-standing visual obstructions along the eastern Lakeshore Vista boundary.
The item did not name us.
It did not need to.
I called Aldrich at 8:23.
He read the paragraph aloud from his fax machine printout and said, “Sten, that’s the predicate document.”
Then he told me to stay on my porch, document everything, and not interfere.
At 9:03, a three-vehicle convoy turned onto Cottonwood Lane.
Constance’s pearl white Lincoln Navigator came first.
Behind it was a Ford F450 with the Tras Heritage Forestry LLC logo on the door, hauling a flatbed trailer carrying a Caterpillar 320 hydraulic excavator.
The third vehicle was a Peterbilt logging truck with a 40-foot empty bed.
Six crew members stepped out in matching forest green jackets.
They unloaded chainsaws, climbing harnesses, and a high-lift man basket.
Constance walked the line with her foreman for 19 minutes.
She pointed at trees.
Helena photographed from the south porch.
Bejarn recorded from the equipment shed with a two-way trail-camera tripod.
Hilda counted trees on a yellow legal pad.
The kitchen went so quiet that the clock seemed indecently loud.
Nobody moved.
At 9:15, the foreman gave the cut order.
At 9:17, the first chainsaw started.
At 9:23, the first cottonwood came down, an 80-foot tree my father had planted in the spring of 1965.
It did not sound like timber.
It sounded personal.
By 11:30, 47 mature trees had been felled.
By noon, all 47 had been bucked into 8-foot sections.
By 12:45, the Peterbilt logging truck was loaded.
At 1:03, the convoy drove away.
The shelter belt that had defined our western line for 60 years was gone.
I sat on the porch for 20 more minutes because anger is useful only after it has been sorted.
At 1:26, I called Aldrich and told him the predicate was complete.
He filed the federal complaint with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa at 3:50 that afternoon.
He filed the state complaint with the Iowa Department of Justice Consumer Protection Division at 4:05.
He filed with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship at 4:15 and the civil complaint in Dickinson County District Court at 4:37.
By 6 p.m., every agency had the 14 sworn statements, Tras Heritage Forestry LLC business filings, Iowa shelter belt inventory records, and October 14th documentation.
By 8 p.m., Senior Deputy Attorney General Eleanor Felstad had opened a formal state investigation.
By Wednesday morning, FBI Special Agent Ula Cordero of the Sioux City Resident Office had opened the federal investigation.
The Tras family did not yet know that.
On Thursday at 4:15, Agent Cordero called and said the exposure was larger than my estimate.
Tras Heritage Forestry had cleared approximately 350 mature trees per prior event across 22 events over five years.
The secondary market timber value calculated against 2025 valuation tables was approximately $1.8 million.
The HOA clearance fees totaled approximately $420,000.
Combined fraud exposure was approximately $2.2 million.
Then she said the indictment would not be unsealed for at least six weeks.
In the interim, she said I could proceed with any agricultural operations on my own land that were permittable under Iowa Code Chapter 657A.
I asked if she understood what I intended to do.
She was quiet for one second.
“Sten,” she said, “I read your 2014 Iowa Pork Congress paper on modern CAFO design this morning. I understand.”
The next Friday at 8:30, I drove to the Dickinson County zoning office and filed the formal permit application for a 4,800-head hog confinement operation on the western upland of the Osland Ranch.
The application met the required 900-foot setback from any residential structure, the 1,200-foot setback from any major drinking water source, and the 1,800-foot setback from any incorporated municipality boundary.
It met the Iowa Department of Natural Resources construction permit requirements.
It met the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship manure management plan requirements.
The permit was approved on November 12th.
Construction began on November 15th.
Constance Tras filed her first attempt to stop construction on December 3rd, alleging intolerable odor, visual, and water quality impacts on Lakeshore Vista.
Judge Calberttenberg dismissed the complaint with prejudice on Iowa Code Chapter 657A grounds and awarded Aldrich $19,000 in sanctions.
Her second attempt, filed January 7th with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, was rejected within 72 hours.
Her third attempt, a federal Clean Air Act action filed February 12th, was dismissed on March 3rd by Judge Helga Sigurson.
The court awarded another $42,000 in sanctions against Lakeshore Vista.
Constance had lost three legal challenges in 86 days.
The hog operation was 26 days from completion.
On March 30th, the first 400 feeder pigs arrived from a Hormel-affiliated nursery contractor in Albert Lea, Minnesota.
On April 1st, the remaining 4,400 arrived across nine truck deliveries.
Bejarn supervised the veterinary intake.
Helena logged every animal into the Iowa State University Extension swine production database she had configured.
By April 3rd, the operation was at full capacity.
The prevailing southwest wind began carrying confinement air across the western Lakeshore Vista property line at approximately 3:15 that afternoon.
The shelter belt had been the only thing keeping my agricultural operation visually and olfactorily distant from them.
Constance had removed it.
By April 10th, 14 Lakeshore Vista households had listed their homes for sale.
By April 23rd, the number was 26.
By May 7th, it was 38, and average list prices had dropped 28 percent.
Constance filed a fourth challenge through a state legislative petition seeking an emergency amendment of Iowa Code Chapter 657A.
The Iowa House Agriculture Committee rejected it 9-0 with two abstentions on May 7th.
The Iowa legislature reaffirmed Chapter 657A in its current form on May 20th.
Three days later, the sealed indictment was unsealed.
Dorian Tras was named on 23 federal counts including mail fraud, wire fraud, federal heritage forestry destruction under the Lacey Act, money laundering, and conspiracy.
Constance Tras was named on 12 federal counts including conspiracy, HOA breach of fiduciary duty, federal wire fraud, and obstruction.
Tras Heritage Forestry LLC was named as a corporate defendant.
At 6:15 Friday morning, May 23rd, Special Agent Ula Cordero arrived at the Tras residence at 4847 Lakeshore Vista Drive with federal investigators, Iowa Department of Justice paralegals, and an Iowa State Patrol Commercial Crimes Unit deputy.
Constance answered the door in a coral robe.
She was placed in federal custody at 6:20.
At 6:25, Dorian was placed in custody at the Tras Heritage Forestry office at 217 East Okoboji Avenue in Spirit Lake.
By 8 a.m., the indictment had reached the Spirit Lake Beacon, the Estherville Daily News, and the Sioux City Journal.
By Friday evening, the Lakeshore Vista HOA held an emergency residents’ meeting attended by 31 of the 110 households.
They recalled Constance from the presidency by a 31-0 vote.
Hilda, Helena, Bejarn, and I sat on the porch that night with a bottle of bourbon Aldrich sent by courier.
Hilda raised her glass and said, “To Daddy’s shelter belt.”
I raised mine.
“To Daddy’s shelter belt.”
At the Saturday press conference in Sioux City, Agent Cordero walked through the 23 federal counts, the five-year shelter belt destruction pattern, the $1.8 million in stolen secondary market timber value, and the $420,000 in fraudulent HOA clearance fees.
Wendell Brimstead stood there with nine of the other prior victims.
I held up my Iowa Code Chapter 657A volume and told the cameras what Lakeshore Vista had misunderstood.
The windbreak was not protecting the farm from the HOA.
The windbreak was protecting the HOA from the farm.
That sentence became the one people repeated.
A man who has waited 28 years inside Iowa agricultural law does not ruin the record by losing his temper at the finish line.
He lets the record finish the job.
Dorian later pleaded guilty to 31 federal counts and received 12 years at FCI Yankton plus $2.4 million in restitution.
Constance pleaded guilty to 14 federal counts and received five years at FCI Waseca plus $420,000 in restitution distributed across the 22 HOAs.
Tras Heritage Forestry LLC was dissolved by federal court order.
The remaining corporate assets, approximately $870,000, were placed in receivership for victims and participating HOAs.
Wendell Brimstead bought Iowa-grown white oak shelter belt saplings with his restitution check and planted them where his father’s 1958 windbreak had been cut.
The other victims replanted too.
Helena coordinated a regional Iowa shelter belt replanting cooperative through her Extension office, and by year’s end, 26 Iowa farms across six counties had trees going back into the ground.
Lakeshore Vista reconstituted its HOA in June under new bylaws.
The new chair, Tor Renwald, filed a formal apology with the Osland family and authorized a $110,000 HOA contribution to replant our western shelter belt.
On May 15th, the work began.
Three rows went back into the ground: cottonwoods, burr oaks, and Norway spruce.
Forty-one Lakeshore Vista residents helped.
Hilda supervised soil amendment.
Helena marked each sapling site with surveyor’s flags.
Bejarn checked the children’s boots, gloves, and safety glasses.
Lynn, age 10, and Sigford, age 7, planted alongside 17 Lakeshore Vista children.
Several adults apologized to me before taking up their shovels.
I accepted the apologies because land keeps better records than pride, and the record needed trees more than it needed speeches.
By July 1st, the new shelter belt was in.
The hog confinement operation remained at full capacity.
The Lakeshore Vista market eventually stabilized, though the new trees were still too young to hide much of anything.
By 2085, that shelter belt will be 60 years old.
It will belong to Lynn and Sigford by then.
It will have outlived me by approximately 25 years.
That is how an Iowa shelter belt works.
That is how an Iowa family works.
Constance Tras thought she was cutting down an obstruction.
What she cut down was the buffer between her HOA and Iowa Code Chapter 657A.
The HOA cut the trees by my lake ranch, so I built the hog farm they had made legally, visibly, and unmistakably possible.
And on windy October nights, when the new cottonwoods rustle above the pasture, they still sound like rain coming down off the lake.