The debate over the proposed CAFO hog farm south of Grant City raged into its second week as supporters and opponents of the proposal debated before the County Commission meeting Monday. The crowd this week was even larger than the last time as over 40 people were present at the meeting. Brian and Kathy Sherer are proposing to put in a CAFO with 2500-7500 Cargill hogs that would be raised and shipped off to processing facilities. As of Friday, the Missouri DNR had not received a permit application for the facility; they must wait a minimum of 30 days to turn a spade as the DNR reviews their application.
In response, a large group of people have proposed that the county pass a health ordinance regulating CAFO's. David B. Parman said that the goal was not to ban all CAFO's; the goal was for the county to set standards that people should follow. Specifically, he said that it was a matter of determining what the setbacks should be and what the number of hogs should be. The problem, as Chevy Davidson saw, was that it would not be possible to pass such an ordinance without regulating all other farming operations, such as cattle operations.
Both sides came armed with studies; Cargill sent three different representatives to the meeting to address the commission. Davidson quoted a University of Missouri study in which Premium Standard had contributed $1.9 million just to local schools. Worth County only got $2,500 of the pie since there are only six barns on the southern edge of the county. Distribution was spread over much of north Missouri, with Mercer County, where Premium Standard is headquartered, getting almost half of the revenue increase. Davidson said that the economic impact for Premium Standard was around $1.1 billion for the area.
Davidson said that health risks were confined to direct contact and that there were no public health risks regardless of production method. He said that this was a matter of making it possible for farmers to put food on the table for future generations.
The problem for a lot of the opponents of the Sherer facility was the fear that their property values would go down because of the belief that nobody would want to live near such a place. In fact, Josh Nana said that there was a study showing that property values went down by as much as 40% if a CAFO were to move into the area. The facility would be in the new proposed Enhanced Enterprise Zone for the county; however, Commissioner Rob Ruckman said he was not sure if the Sherer farm would qualify.
Mike Sherer, who runs a facility by Bethany, said that this was a matter of bringing grandson Scott back to the area and that it was "terrible the way you were treating him." Sam Martell responded that it was not a personal vendetta that he had but the concern that property values would go down. Mike Sherer responded that he had run 1000 head of hogs all the time when he was younger and that his personal health had actually improved in the last few years since he built his facility.
The Sherer farm would be 3/4 of a mile from the main road and they would inject waste into the ground deep enough so that it would not create an odor problem; they have been in the process of getting easements so that they could do so. Josh Nana said that this was not personal for him and that the Sherers had been good neighbors to both him and his mother, who owns land next to where the facility would be built. But he said that it was a major health issue for the area; for instance, he said that in Iowa, there were 10% higher asthma rates for schoolchildren who live near to such places.
Jerry Foster of Cargill said that the study in question was not peer reviewed and characterized a lot of studies done by opponents as "circular logic." "All they do is quote each other," he said. "You can't go off one study when you do these things." For instance, he said that the study in question didn't control for different situations at the two schools studied that might have affected the data.
Mike Sherer said that odor was not a problem for him and that perfume odor was much more of a problem. "There are places I quit going to because people have too much perfume on," he said. "That's a good point," responded Sam Martell. "You have the option of leaving. People who have to live near one of these places don't have that option."
Brenda Parman said that what the Sherers were doing amounted to taking away property values from other people for their own well-being. "This is not about you," she said. Randall Baker said that if the commission were to do nothing, it would set a dangerous precedent because more and more CAFO's would come in. "We're not willing to gamble our property values in the hopes that this would work," added Martell.
Mike Sherer said that putting up his barn was what kept him in the area. He said that only one of his neighbors ever gave him trouble over the place and that he was not even from the area. "Everyone else knew that it was about farming. This is a farming community," he said.
"But these people are not farmers," said Jerry Roach, referring to Cargill, who would be stocking the facility with their hogs. "They are in it for the money." Mike Sherer said that the alternative was to try to get bigger so that he could compete with giants like Cargill, which he said he could not do.
Herb Petty said that corporate farming was illegal in the state of Missouri. Addressing Brian and Kathy Sherer, he said, "But you're on their contract and doing whatever they are telling you to. This is part of an industrialized takeover of farming." He pointed out that if problems arose with the facility that people would sue them instead of Cargill. Petty said that what they were doing affected everyone. "These people have a whole record of screwing up the environment," he said. Addressing a rejoinder that they dealt with combine odor all the time, Petty noted that combines were not a constant like CAFO's are.
Addressing the studies from the University of Missouri, Petty said that there were just as many other professors who did studies showing that CAFO's were a liability to the state.
Tim Steinkamp of Cargill said that farming hogs could still be done; it was a matter of finding a niche and responding to consumer demand. He said that it was a misconception that Cargill shipped all their food overseas and that the company kept 75% of its food in the US and exported the other 25%.
Steinkamp acknowledged that odor was an ongoing problem and that the company was doing ongoing work to address the problem. While he did not have an exact figure as to how much the company spent, he said that they were involved in several different programs which address odor problems. He said that in places where they were at, there were compliments from neighbors and that with 1/2 mile setbacks from any homes, they did not have a big problem with odors. He said that they would work with local setback requirements. The three barns in Harrison County are around 10 miles apart from each other. He said that there was a big difference between their facilities and the Premium Standard facilities which have been the target of an ongoing lawsuit by the state for the last 15 years. The Sherer facility would have 2400 to 4800 hogs as opposed to the 48000 that Premium Standard houses.
Addressing the danger of gases from such facilities killing people, Jerry Foster said that sort of thing had happened back in the 1970's before CAFO's and that it was an ongoing risk from working in such places. He said that there were studies that cat odor was more toxic that a CAFO one mile away. He said that there were places like Lancaster, PA in which huge chicken barns coexisted side by side with $300,000 homes. In fact, he said that land values went up. However Rhonda Richards said that there was a big difference from Worth County's situation since people were moving from there out of the suburbs of Washington, DC and that land was consequently in high demand. In other words, she said that they were comparing apples to oranges.
Parman said that many health ordinances like the one proposed for the county would require a fee and a cleanup bond in case the project went under. The state has an indemnity fee that they charge in case of abandonment, but Parman said that they had not used it in the last 15 years, meaning that the DNR was very lax when it came to enforcement.
The discussion got heated as Kathy Sherer said that opponents were simply trying to shut them down. "Cargill doesn't care what this community thinks; they don't fit in with us," responded Martell. "You keep using the cattle operations as a defense; that's not a defense," said Brenda Parman. "So you're discriminating against hog operations," responded Brian Sherer. David Parman said that in any health ordinance, existing operations would be grandfathered in and that Linn County and other places were able to work around cattle operations.
Another issue discussed was groundwater contamination. Ann Roach said that when she got up at 5 in the morning, her coffee tasted like hog manure and that they didn't even live that close to the Premium Standard operation. Responding to Kathy Sherer's rejoinder that their operation was different, she asked, "Where does it all end? I have to stand up before one comes on my own doorstep."
The argument continued after the commissioners returned to the meeting room as 15 different people filled the room. Kathy Sherer said that there were adequate safeguards put in place so that groundwater contamination would not be an issue. For instance, both they and the people who they have easements with have to have a manure testing plan filed with the state and that the people applying the waste, out of Mount Ayr, had liability insurance so that would not be a problem. "That's fine that you're going to do the responsible thing, but what about the next people to come in here?" asked Josh Nana.
Dan Yonker of the Missouri Pork Producers Association and a Cargill employee said that farming was different today than it was 30-50 years ago and that the market was becoming more and more specialized. He said that more and more people were wanting lean beef, meaning that these CAFO's were necessary to respond to consumer demand. Yonker said that it was a matter of creating opportunities for people to come back and manage farms and that when they went into Atchison County, it created a huge economic benefit for people that caused a lot of initial opponents to change their minds about the project. However, Nana pointed out that these farms were done on a much bigger scale than the Sherers were proposing and that the benefit would be much less since these facilities have 26000 hogs.
Although Josh Nana said that the DNR was getting 1600 complaints a month about CAFO's, Jerry Foster, who worked for the DNR before going to work for Cargill, said that most complaints that the DNR got were from a small group of people from a small area of the state, whereas these facilities were located all over the state. He said that the DNR's hands were tied to the guidelines given them by the legislature. "It's easy to complain about something, but it's a lot more difficult to substantiate these allegations," he said. Nana said that there had already been objections registered with DNR regarding the Sherer facility, which Foster said was not unusual.
Steinkamp said that there were many counties who had chosen not to go down the path of health ordinances. He said that in that case, they would still be regulated by the state. Josh Nana said that meant that it came down to a question of whether the commission wanted local control or whether they wanted to give up control of the state. "You're the ones in control, not these corporate guys," he said. He said that a better alternative would be for the county to work with the Sherers to find a way that didn't involve CAFO's.
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