CAFO Saturday
Well, the first item does not deal with CAFO’s, but their smaller cousins CFO’s. The Wayne County Plan Commission has recomended that the county commissioners pass the newly drafted CFO regulations: Commission recommends approval of CFO ordinance - Palladium-Item. If the commissioners sign off on the new ordinance, any newly proposed CFO would have to comply.
I was talking to my wife this morning about a friend who lives nearby in the country. When this friend first went out to rural Randolph county, built her dream home, and settled in with her kids roaming the countryside unhindered and unthreatened, we were very jeleous. We live in the “suburbs” of Richmond in a very nice neighborhood, but not at all the county setting the we had always dreamed of, and had lived in until I started working as an attorney.
Now, though, we do not envy this friend quite so much. She has had to fight (an lose) the placement of a landfill near her homestead, fight (and lose) against the placement of a super-dairy (read CAFO) nearby, and now she is facing the installation of a pig CAFO in the neighborhood.
What was once an ideal setting in traditional Indiana landscapes, is turning into a an industrial ghetto. But this is the transformation we in rural Indiana are being asked to accept. It will be here before we know it.
Take for instance Karen Myers’s observations yesterday on her blog: Karen is the author of the “Work at Home Mom Diary” or wahm diary. She lives in Wheatfield, Indiana, although she is originally Canadian. She reports on what appears to be the first sighting of whooping cranes in northern Indiana for the year. The cranes pass through each year around this time, providing locals and bird tourists with an opportunity to catch a view.
Karen noted that John Kendall saw 4 whooping cranes yesterday morning on the Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Reserve, but goes on to note that the Reserve is under 3 miles from a pig CAFO that was approved by Jasper County earlier this month:
Imagine it - the excavation construction is only about 30 yards from the border of the Jasper/Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area game reserve …only about 3 miles from the center of the reserve’s major fresh water lake/pond into which most all the surrounding tributaries and ditches feed.
Be sure to check out Karen’s report from the Jasper Co BZA meeting, here. She focus on one of the issue that concern me the most about confined feeding: the basic cruelty inflicted on the livestock.
November 19th, 2005 20:07
“The Wayne County Plan Commission hasrecomended that the county commissioners pass the newly drafted CFO regulations.” Where can I go online to get a copy of these regulations?
November 20th, 2005 14:15
Thank you for picking up on the story unfolding here in Jasper County, Indiana. Your story was passed on to me from one of our neighbors. We’re doing our best to fight this, however from all the horror stories we’ve heard, we have quite a battle on our hands. Thanks again for helping us get the word out.