Mega-farms can play a role in economic development, especially in Indiana’s rural areas. But county leaders and environmental regulators need to pay close attention to where they allow mega-farms to locate. And residents need to hold those officials accountable for the responsible expansion of the agricultural industry.

All but certain to be signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels, the Indiana House measure would require a city or county to pay 150 percent of fair market value to the owner of an occupied residence and 125 percent for agricultural land. Weinzapfel noted the bill’s effect is to force a government agency to look at individual parcels rather than an entire area when the goal for use of condemned land is economic development and increasing assessed valuation.

The government entity also would be responsible for relocation costs and some legal expenses. Weinzapfel said Evansville’s project could fall under a provision of the new law inserted to accommodate a plan to redevelop a South Bend brownfield where Studebaker automobiles were manufactured. It allows a government entity to consider land of multiple parcels as a block when it comprises at least 10 acres and when the entity acquires clear title to 90 percent of the parcels.

St. Joseph County Commissioner Steve Ross, D-District 2, is the originator of the proposed ordinance. Ross said he will introduce the measure when the commissioners meet Tuesday.Ross said the ordinance is intended to be applicable to the CAFO proposed for Union Township, and to ensure that both the environment and public well-being are taken into consideration.

Unless it is somehow derailed, the ordinance could get first reading at the council’s April 11 meeting and be eligible for public hearing when the council meets on May 9.

Once the ordinance is in the council pipeline, Ross said, he will seek a moratorium on the issuance of building permits needed for the dairy operation. If granted, Ross said the moratorium would last until the ordinance is either approved or rejected by the council.

“That’s where the real power of the county lies,” said Ross, noting that once building permits are issued they can’t be rescinded or retracted. The proposed Walnut Grove CAFO near Lakeville contemplates a 3,500-head dairy cow operation. Thus far, the proposal has been vehemently opposed by Union Township residents who live near the site, on Riley Road west of Ironwood Road. There is currently no county ordinance that would affect the proposal, an agricultural operation in an area zoned for agricultural purposes.

“I’m not surprised,” said Walnut Grove partner David Schrock when told of the ordinance. “We’ll have to play this thing out. How much the proposed ordinance would slow the CAFO from proceeding is uncertain.Schrock said earlier this month that he was about 30 days away from submitting a permit application to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and that the timetable calls for construction of dairy buildings to begin later this year and be completed by early2008.

County Commissioner Cindy Bodle, D-District 3, said the measure appears to be a good ordinance, adding that she wants to hear comments on it from the health department, building department and area plan commission.

Ross has primarily opposed the site of the CAFO rather than the CAFO itself. “I think this is a bad location,” said Ross, adding that he would prefer it if dairy operators sought an alternative location. As proposed in the ordinance, the board of health permit approval would be based on determining that the proposed site is served by adequate access roads and has proper drainage.The board also would have to determine that the facility would not result in air or water pollution or soil erosion, and would not be detrimental to public health, safety or welfare.

A March 17 letter from John Cheesewight, president of the Vermillion County Farm Bureau, invited various officials to “a dinner and information session” presented by the Natural Pork Production II LLP.

“The company is exploring placing a hog production facility in Vermillion County,” the letter stated. “They would like to explain in detail their business practices and the processes they use to minimize the impact on the environment.”

“The company asked to come and talk with us,” said Ed Cole, executive director of Economic Development Council. “We are going to talk to the company and get the facts of how they do business and how they handle the waste. We want it to be a win-win situation for the community, and it has to fit with the surroundings, the neighborhood and that type of thing.”

Rose Parsley is among some longtime Universal residents who might welcome another business, but she has reservations about a large hog production facility near her home.

“We don’t need the hogs in this area and we don’t want them here,” she said. Parsley, a former town board president for several terms, believes most citizens are against the proposal.

“We all feel sure that thing would have been long gone if we hadn’t done the calendar,” said Eileen Herron, an 87-year-old Farmland resident known to calendar buyers as “Miss October.”

They operate two corporate-owned farms, in Maryland and Idaho. Their Idaho facility, milking 4000–5000 cows, was originally a conventional factory-dairy that they converted to organic production. It has, according to widespread industry reports, very little access to pasture. Unlike the majority of all organic dairy farmers in the United States, who concentrate on the health and longevity of their cows, caring for them from birth, the Dean/Horizon Idaho farm sells off all their calves. Later, presumably to save money on organic feed and management, they buy one-year-old conventional animals on the open market. These replacements likely have received conventional milk replacer (made with blood—considered to be a “mad cow” risk), antibiotics, other prohibited pharmaceuticals, and genetically engineered feed. Many practices on a farm of this nature put ethical family-scale organic farmers at a competitive disadvantage.

Factory farming, overwhelmingly dominated by huge corporations like Tyson, Smithfield, ConAgra and Seaboard, has contributed to rural depopulation and the decline of the family farm. It has nothing going for it except that it produces food that is, at the point of sale, cheap. But for that low price, the animals, the environment and rural neighborhoods have to pay steeply.

Following up on my post from last week. the Dayton Daily News had a story on the impact in Ohio: Law forces sex offenders to move. Some are fighting back. Does making sex offenders move really make children safer? covers the story of a 5 year old man, caring for his ailing spouse who is appealing a court order requiring him to relocate due to a 2005 law in Ohio prohibiting sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school:

The order was appealed Feb. 7 to the Ohio 2nd District Court of Appeals by lawyers from the Ohio Justice and Policy Center in Cincinnati. Among the nonprofit office’s missions is helping convicted sex offenders get back on their feet, said Stephen JohnsonGrove, a center lawyer. . . .

“There may be people, indeed, who shouldn’t be living within 1,000 feet of a school, but offenders are approached with such a broad paint brush,” JohnsonGrove said. “I simply want people to consider the level of damage that this is doing to people’s lives, and there is no evidence this is going to help anything.”

“Every wetland consultant, everybody who does land development, everybody I do business with will be watching them closely,” Highland attorney Michael Muenich — who represents developers — said of the Supreme Court cases.

Don Ewoldt, who manages Indiana’s first wetland mitigation bank — 230 acres of restored wetlands in Lake Station, where developers can compensate for filled-in wetlands in other areas — is concerned about the decision’s potential implications.

“It could be hard on the environment,” he said. “A lot of wetlands could be filled in.”

Link.

In 2001, the Court determined that the so-called migratory bird rule, used to give the Corps of Engineers jurisdiction over “isolated” wetlands was an over extension of jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act (the so called SWANK case). NPR did a piece a while ago (I cannot locate it now) about the impact of that decision, and the fact is, no one is really monitoring the pace at which wetlands are being filled in in most places. The Post-Tribune article notes how much Indiana has changed through the draining of wetlands:

Wetlands covered more than 100,000 acres of Northwest Indiana before European settlers moved in, dug ditches to drain them and started farming and building on the land.

Real Estate Brokers:

Real Estate brokers scored a big win in the Indiana Legislature this year with the passage of HEA 1339. This provision mandates certain services that must be part of a listing contract. On the face, it would appear to protect sellers, assuring that they get a certain minimum level of services from their broker, but in truth, what the new law does is prevent the advancement into Indiana of low-cost brokerages, like internet brokers.

It is a strange provision as it forces the seller to accept services from the broker, even if the seller would rather not have those services and would gladly forgo them, in exchange for a lower listing fee. It deprives sellers of contract options, and as the Indiana Law Blog recently noted:

The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, along with consumer groups and many new real estate brokers, opposes the law. Gov. Mitch Daniels did not act in the best interests of consumers and homeowners when he signed this legislation. . . .

NPR’s Morning Edition had a story last Friday, March 3rd, about how “the Internet is putting pressure on the fees that [real estate] agents have become accustomed to.” It speculated whether real estate agents would soon go the way of travel agents. And stock brokers.

In other words, no discount real estate brokers in Indiana.

Advance Indiana has more:

Advance Indiana wonders just what impact this new law will have on Indianapolis-based Homeyeah.com. Their fees are 40%-90% less than the traditional real estate brokers’ fees. As it describes its services, “Our proprietary business model and technology allows buyers and sellers to take more control of their transaction without sacrificing necessary information and licensed professional guidance at critical points during the transaction process.”

In the formal paperwork, Rettinger’s attorney, Stephen Snyder of Warsaw, presented the board, Rettinger states Booker’s issuance of the building permit violates the Marshall County zoning ordinance.

The proposed hog operation is adjacent to and directly across the road from Rettinger’s property at 6322 E. 14th Road in Bourbon. In Rettinger’s written appeal, he also claims the use for which Laidig obtained the permit violates five sections of the ordinance, specifically: General performance standards, health and safety requirements, waste disposal restrictions, intensive livestock operation regulations and storm water sediment controls.

For those reasons, Rettinger states, he “will be directly injured and irreparably harmed by construction and operation” of the swine feeding facility. He is asking the BZA to revoke the permit based on “failure to comply” with the zoning ordinance.

While some of the Iowa’s largest cities, like Des Moines, have become virtually off limits for those convicted of sex crimes involving children, the new rules have pushed many to live in groups away from their families, in places like the Ced-Rel, or the Red Carpet Inn in nearby Bouton, where nine offenders rent rooms.

Michele Costigan, whose driveway is right across Highway 30 from the Ced-Rel in this rural stretch just outside Cedar Rapids, said she had stopped leaving any of her four children at home alone, had told them to dial 911 if anyone they did not recognize pulled into the family driveway, and was considering moving.

Link.

As the article notes, Iowa is not alone in its crackdown on sex offenders, and many towns and local communities are pushing for even tougher restrictions. We are definitely seeing a race to the bottom:

The statute has set off a law-making race in the cities and towns of Iowa, with each trying to be more restrictive than the next by adding parks, swimming pools, libraries and bus stops to the list of off-limits places. Fearful that Iowa’s sex offenders might seek refuge across state lines, six neighboring states have joined the frenzy.

“We don’t want to be the dumping ground for their sex offenders,” said Tom Brusch, the mayor of Galena, Ill., which passed an ordinance in January.

One consequence of the crackdown is that fewer sex offenders are registering, being unable to find legally acceptable accommodations . One sheriff reported going from 90% compliance to just of 50% since the passage of the new law.

The request by Steele and Caldwell Farms, located on County Road 350-South and County Road 250-West, calls for a restricted commercial farm enterprise (confined feeding operation).

Resident Gary Smith requested members to table the issue as several people residing in the area have yet to study the information and respond. Smith cited road conditions, odor, revenue versus cost and use of property as concerns in the area for the proposed business.

He said only some of the neighbors were contacted about the operation. The board granted an extension until the April 10 meeting to present objections to the operation.

She said the 4,000-pig operation would use about 4,000 gallons of water daily. The annual operation will require about 35 trips with semi-trailers using the road and will not present a traffic problem.

She said there are 59,000 farmers in Indiana of which 3,200 are pork farmers. Six million pigs are marketed annually. Pigs eat 12 percent of corn grown in Indiana and eight percent soy beans.

 WHAT WAS CHOSEN?

A system for treating liquid waste, was designed by Super Soil Systems USA, which separates liquid waste from solids and treated treats it in a series of large tanks.

A solid waste treatment system, also by Super Soil, ’s solid waste treatment system was also chosen. In that process, the which combines solids are combined with other materials, such as cotton gin residue or wood chips, into composts.

A gasification process, which burns waste called gasification was chosen as a solid waste treatment. In this process, waste is burned in a low-oxygen environment, which converts converting organic compounds into gases, such as methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be These gases can then be used to make ethanol.

A burning process, known as Biomass Energy Sustainable Technology, or BEST, involves which burns burning the solid waste at temperatures above 1,300 degrees.

A system is called ORBIT, in which uses microbes in an anaerobic digester to convert waste is converted to biogas, methane and carbon dioxide. by microbes in an anaerobic digester.

Smithfield Foods provided $15 million to evaluate technologies, while the attorney general allocated $2.3 million from the Premium Standard Farms agreement, for a total of $17.3 million. In 2002 the attorney general entered a third agreement with Frontline Farmers, an organization made up swine farmers. While Frontline Farmers did not provide funding, the organization’s membership agreed to work with the attorney general and N.C. State University to develop and implement environmentally superior technologies.

Effective March 3, the IDEM has opened a technical comment period on the draft individual permit and application by New Holland Dairy, LLC, which was submitted for state review Sept. 26, 2005.

New Holland Dairy’s application was for construction and operation of a dairy operation which would be located near the intersection of County Road 400 South and Meridian Road, approximately three miles southwest of Bluffton in   Liberty Twp.

Link (Fort Wayne News Banner).

IDEM was nice enough to point out that this is a NPDES permitting process, so they aren’t concerned with many issues that may trouble the dairy’s neighbors:

Pointed out by the IDEM notice was that citizens should be reminded that some issues (odor, potential devalued property, and traffic concerns) are not within IDEM’s jurisdiction.  Noted by the IDEM are that these concerns are local zoning issues.

The article notes that Well County Commissioners will have the final say on the proposed dairy, and also notes that Wells County has another Dairy on the way that has already cleared the regulatory process:

Four Leaf Clover Dairy, based out of Wauseon, Ohio, was issued a permit on Feb. 6, 2006, to build two dairy barns at 7630 East, 1100 South in Nottingham Twp, which is in a remote rural area three miles southeast of Petroleum.

The Four-Leaf Clover Dairy operation originally filed an application with IDEM on April 5, 2005, for a facility consisting of three freestall barns confining a total of 2,200 cows.

 

The article also has a nice little summary of exactly what IDEM regulations require for the operation of a CAFO:

IDEM requirements include:

—Each freestall barn will have concrete floors and scraped to direct manure to a liquid collection and storage system.

—The manure and process wastewater will be directed first to a concrete sand settling basin and secondly to a wastewater storage lagoon.

—The settling basin will be a two-compartment reinforced concrete structure and the storage lagoon will have a compacted clay liner.

—All milking parlor wastewaters will be directed to the manure/process wastewater storage system.

—The raw materials and feed storage area is designed to collect silage leachate and the storm water up to the 25-year, 24-hour rain event.

—All manure and process wastewaters will be land applied by the permittee, or distributed to other persons for land application or converting to compost.

—The milk chilling process utilizes groundwater and a non-contact cooling device.

—The non-contact water will be collected for recycling as drinking water or to mist the cows for cooling purposes.

—Excess non-contact cooling water will be conveyed to an existing field drainage tile.

Gov. Mitch Daniels signed a bill into law Thursday that would prohibit certain sex offenders from living with 1,000 feet of a school or public park, or within a mile of their victim’s residence.

The bill also would prohibit so-called “sexually violent predators” from working or volunteering at schools, parks or youth centers.

Sexually violent predators are defined as people convicted of certain sex crimes who suffer from mental abnormalities or personality disorders that make them likely to repeat such crimes.

A HUGE amount of their operation will be automated and carefully controlled/monitored by computer (with regards to feed). Each sow will receive their own portions of feed, delivered automatically through a computer controlled feeding system.

Special enzymes (called “green moss”) will be added to their feed to ensure proper digestion, and hopefully eliminate and/or reduce a large amount of pathogens from their waste. Again, the amount of additive will be scientifically controlled and delivered via the automatic feeding system.

Even the “teaser bores” will be walked up and down the aisles in front of the confined sows (to get them “excited” and ready for insemination) will be done using a robotic leading system.

BUT, as I expressed near the end of our tour, had they come into this area in an honest and open manner, instead of sliding in through the back door hoping no one would notice them until it was a “done deal” …maybe — just maybe — we wouldn’t be so defensive about the whole thing. It didn’t speak well for “responsible” business ethics