CAFO Gap
“We’re now facing an onslaught,” Wendy Carpenter, chairwoman of Environmentally Concerned Citizens of Randolph County (ECCRC), told about 150 people who attended a meeting at the county fairgrounds Tuesday night. “We need your help.”
Carroll County ranked first with 232,653 hogs, Clinton County ranked second with 182,716 hogs, and Decatur County ranked third with 154,586 hogs in 2002. Randolph County had 69,440 hogs in the latest census.
Randolph County Commissioner Ron Chalfant, a farmer, told The Star Press in January that county officials decided not to adopt any ordinances to regulate CAFOs because farmers already were saddled with enough state regulations.
“If the county adds to those, it makes it difficult to entice livestock entities,” Chalfant said.
Over in Jackson County, you can take a look and see what happens Inside a CAFO :
Jackson County hog farmers say they’ve done a poor job of educating the public about changes in agriculture, especially large-scale hog farms.
They hope a recent seminar at the Craig and Denver Klinge farms south of Dudleytown will help correct that and offer a different perspective to the public on confined animal feeding operations.
Not everyone in convinced though:
Opposition to a proposed 8,000-head hog operation northeast of Reddington last summer and fall prompted the discussion. In that case, a special exception granted last October to Talara Lykins of Bartholomew County to operate the hog farm on 10 acres of land has drawn two lawsuits against the Jackson County Board of Zoning Appeals. They remain in litigation.
Those lawsuits address concerns raised by a community group, Families Against (CAFOs) in Reddington, and Jennings Water Utility. Area residents and the utility are concerned about a variety of environmental issues, including a potential threat to area water supplies should the concrete holding pen for thousands of gallons of manure leak or rupture. They’re also concerned about the soil type in the area and other issues.
April 26th, 2006 09:40
[...] As part of the proposed Rural Indiana Strategy for Excellence (RISE) program, the state hosted an community input session in WInchester, Indiana, the county seat for Randolph County. Remember, Randolph has 6 pending pig CAFO’s: The meeting was attended by about 100 people, the majority of whom made it clear that their vision for the Indiana countryside does not include an influx of industrial-size hog farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).Link (Star Press) “These pigs farms are going to destroy what (economy) we’ve still got left,” one member of the audience told facilitators Nancy Kinder, director of Eastern Indiana Development District, and Joe Pearson, staff associate at Purdue University’s Center for Regional Development. Others in attendance complained that the swine CAFOs “being pushed down our throats” would pollute Randolph County’s air and water and make the county unattractive to new business. “Your local land-use laws are what can protect you,” Kinder told the crowd. (In an interview after the meeting, Kinder criticized Randolph County’s Area Planning Commission for not addressing concerns about CAFOs raised by the public in recent years. “No planning is bad planning,” Kinder told The Star Press).Andy Miller, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Agriculture issued a response to the concerned residents: This administration does not support a moratorium on large livestock farms. Most farmers are good managers and protect the environment.Over in Jackson County, another location where CAFO’s have been in dispute, those running for county government do not seem to think that local regulations are necessary: I think as long as we keep the hog operations in the agricultural segment and we don’t put them down on the courthouse square, and as long as we use the good science that is given to us by the universities and the ag engineers, I think they are fine. Then it comes to regulations. We have to make sure they are followed.Link. the candidates fear that sexually oriented businesses pose more of a threat to their community: “If I’m elected commissioner, I would do everything in my power to make sure those businesses are not in our county.” It seems amazing to me that potential county leaders are more concerned over businesses that cater to interests of consenting adults to be conducted in the privacy of their own homes than a business that proposes to an industrial operation that threatens the water of the community, as well as the well being of its neighbors. I know a few folks that went to Earlham College at the same time I did who now make their homes in rural Randolph County. These are college educated professionals with kids trying to make their homes in what was once a quiet, rural setting. Over the past couple of years, they have been beset with expanding landfills, a confined dairy operation, and now 6 new confined pig operations. As they pull their drinking water from the ground, and breath the air out there, it cannot be long before they seriously question their choice of homesteads. Now they have invested serious capital in real estate that has become significantly less appealing in the eyes of most home buyers. One of these friends recently reported that a friend of his, who had planned to relocate to Randolph County, has now reconsidered, in part due to all of the industrial development in the area. This friend was a doctor. Doctors, teachers, consultants, these are folks with the ability to choose their place of residence. Randolph County’s inability to control the development of its rural landscape (and that is most of the county) will mean that the only folks will remain in the community are those without the option of leaving. [...]