Must Read Legislative Debates
The Pal-Item reports on a candidates’ debate here in Wayne County. The debate on Tuesday Night at IU East was for candidates for the statehouse, and I say must read, as some of the pre planned questions covered CAFO’s in the state. Here is a report on the discussion between democratic incumbent Phil Pflum and republican challenger Jaye Gibbs:
Pflum, who lives on a farm, wants a moratorium on confined feeding operations until their effects on communities and the environment can be studied. If they’re built, he wants them to be put in the most rural areas.
Gibbs disagreed.
"If agriculture can’t be conducted on agricultural land, then where is it going to be conducted?" Gibbs said. "I don’t think Indiana should regulate it out of hand because it’s unpleasant."
Gibbs and Pflum are fighting over house seat in District 56. Up in District 54, all 3 candidates (Libertarian Rex Bell was included) expressed support of increased scrutiny:
Democratic candidate David Sadler supports studying the effects of confined feeding operations on the community and environment.
Libertarian candidate Rex Bell said he thinks the issue can be addressed with local zoning.
Republican incumbent Tom Saunders said he has asked the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to send in more inspectors for the operations, and he intends to follow up with legislation.
If I asked the questions, I would want to know if the candidates intend to stand by the Indiana Right to Farm Act passed last year (Indiana Code 32-30-6-9) which bars nuisance actions from neighbors of agricultural operations after 1 year of operation. The biggest impact of this law is that the 1 year window for neighbors to sue is triggered by a change in operations of the neighboring property. Note that, under the law, a change from a corn field to a 16,000 hog CAFO is not a change in operations as it is a continuation of agricultural activities.
So unless someone is tearing down a residential property to build a CAFO, neighbors to a new CAFO built on existing agricultural property will not be permitted to sue if the CAFO generates odors and wastes that make their property unusable.
October 12th, 2006 22:04
That is why I believe local zoning, with reasonable buffer zones between existing homes and CAFO’s are the better answer. If a company or individual wishes to start an operation in that buffer zone, it would be up to the people in the affected area.
http://dist54lib.blogspot.com/2006/07/on-property-rights-and-zoning.html
October 13th, 2006 07:59
Mr. Bell, I think you are right on this. The people in the immediate vicinity need to be involved in the decision making. However, as a factory farm will have an impact on an entire watershed, the issue is broader than just the neighborhood. Likewise, I think the county needs to be concerns with, not only the current conditions on local lands, but the impact of today’s development on the property 30, 40, 50 years down the road.
This lesson should have been learned in the “post-industrial” era, with many local communities dealing with serious contamination of previous industrial sites, with no one but the taxpayers left to pick up the clean up bill.
October 13th, 2006 09:41
Thank you for the information. I want to know if any of the candidates would support repealing (or revising) IC 32-30-6-9 and/or support more stringent regulation at the state level. I realize that increased regulation is anathema to some, but IDEM is supposed to protect the waters of the state, IIRC. Why should regulation of operations that have a significant impact on those waters be done on a county by county basis? (Sorry, I’m not supposed to leave comments on your blog.)
October 19th, 2006 12:37
IDEM is not protecting the waters of the state. They just passed an application for an 8000 head hog operation to be placed in an 100 year floodplain. According to DNR’s own ecological survey in conjunction with the promotion of the Grand Kankakee Marsh Refuge, they state the Kankakee River overflows its banks on an average of 2 years. Yet IDEM allowed this CAFO app to pass with only ONE unidentified soil boring taken in Nov’05 at 60 degrees in the driest year of the last 4 years. This operation will be sitting on the north side of the bank from an already existing waterfowl refuge maintained by Waterfowl USA and to the east and adjoining a waterfowl and feeding refuge under consultation with DNR.
This certainly doesn’t sound like wise decision making to me. IDEM was even in “consultation” with DNR to be sure they were using the same verbage. The only common verbage that comes to mind is “money-under-the-table”.