Local CAFO Talk
From the Pal-Item today, 2 letters to the editor regarding the challenges presented by the influx of CAFO’s into the region. The first from local water quality advocate, Barbara Sha Cox: Growing concern voiced over impact of CAFOs:
Meet with your county boards to enact CAFO restrictions, protecting the health, environment, economy and quality of life in your community. Together, we can encourage our local and state leaders to act in the best interest of all Indiana citizens. We hope you will join the many other concerned citizens around the state, in this grass-roots effort to protect our state. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact Barbara Sha Cox, P.O. Box 1572, Richmond, IN 47375, barbarasha1@msn.com.
And another from Randolph County resident, Mary E. Davis, who wonders why these operations are being chased out of North Carolina, but welcomed with open arms in Indiana: Hog factories seek to locate in state, but why is that?
I read that two more area CAFOs are coming to Henry County. Also several people, at least 250, were protesting this. How many does it take to let the people that are supposed to be looking out for our best interest know we don’t want all this stink and pollution?
The paper’s agricultural section has a note about an upcoming session in Winchester:
North Carolina residents Don Webb and Rick Dove will share their perspectives on the impact of the corporate hog industry there. Webb is a family farmer, former industrial hog producer and president of the Alliance for a Responsible Swine Industry. Dove is a retired Marine Corps colonel, and a commercial fisherman.
Link. It is set for this Thursday at 7:30 p.m.at the National Guard Armory in Winchester.
Outside of Indiana, some items of interest include a piece in the Toledo Blade: Ohio, Michigan Megafarms Spur Clashes Over Air, Water Pollution. The article includes a bit of a profile on the efforts of Stephen Vander Hoff, the man behind the Vreba-Haff Development Authority, aimed at providing relocation services to Dutch dairy farmers:
Many choose the tri-state region of Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana because of its affordable land, access to water, favorable climate, and simpler regulations. Farmers have been moving here from the Netherlands for a few years, in part because environmental laws in the European Union have become so stiff, according to information from the Ohio State University Extension.
The piece also has coverage of lawsuits in a couple of Ohio counties seeking to seal manure management plans of dairies. The claim is the dairies want to protect property owners who accept manure from the dairies from harassment by local CAFO opponents. The opponents fear not knowing where the manure is going, and report harassment themselves:
Sue Torrey of Wood County Citizens Opposed to Factory Farms, one of several area watchdog groups that have sprung up, said her group doesn’t condone harassment. But the group "can’t control every kook in the county" irked by megafarms.She and that group’s president, Jane Phillips, claim to have been harassed themselves. Both said they have received threatening letters accusing them of being troublemakers, with the anonymous senders hoping they "starve to death."
Finally, there is reference to a catastrophe in Ontario:
She [Lynn Henning] was referring to an event in May, 2000, in which seven people died and nearly half of Walkerton’s population of 5,000 got sick. A probe revealed water contaminated by cattle manure had been errantly washed down into the town’s public water well. The episode has been described as one of Canada’s worst public-health disasters.
