Getting Things Straight in Jasper County
Cindy Ward, a staff writer for the Kankakee Valley Post News, has a nice piece upabout an upcoming hearing before the local BZA on a cattle CAFO seeking a special exception.
This operator got things a little backwards, as far as the proper process. He started a chicken CAFO without a permit from IDEM for 30 years. When this was raised as an issue he went in May of 2006 and IDEM gave him a permit for his existing operation (345,000 birds). Now he wants to convert the chicken CAFO into a cattle CAFO. As for the neighbors in the subdivision down the road? Well the operator’s attorney said the developers knew about the CAFO when they built (even though it had no permit?) and a local ordinance limits a neighbor’s ability to complain about a change of use if you move to within 2 miles of land zoned agricultural:
Indiana has often been referred to by the nation as the bible belt, or tornado alley, but more recently, on-line blogs are referring to Indiana as the CAFO spine. Depending on where you are in the equation you may or may not think CAFO, Confined Animal Feeding Operation, is a bad term
