CAFO foes speak up (3/23/09)

About a dozen people voiced concerns this morning regarding concentrated animal feeding operations to Jay County.

The commissioners spent an hour and half talking CAFOs as worries about a potential 6,400-head Rooijakkers Dairy LLC. operation near the Adams County line continue to mount.

The potential development has citizens throughout the county voicing some concern due to a 19-million gallon animal waste lagoon positioned near a tributary to the Wabash River that would be installed if the CAFO comes to the county.

Rooijakkers, which could locate near county roads 900 North and 250 East, has not filed any local permit applications, but has completed an initial permitting process with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

The commissioners began the conversation with Jay County Surveyor Brad Daniels by asking about setbacks from a flood plain, about requirements for moving a county drain and about additional approvals from other state agencies.

Daniels informed the commissioners that the dairy would meet all requirements for moving a county tile through the area and that they meet the flood plain setback requirement. However, Daniels said he has only seen preliminary plans, and a final drawing might have to gain approval from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources depending on the drain or lagoon's location.

He said, that Rooijakkers, outside of the exchange asking about the drain, has not officially applied for any work to be done. Daniels also said there were several other agencies, such as the department of natural resources, that he knows the dairy group has not been in touch with.

"They haven't contacted me," he said since the initial correspondence. "There's several hurdles they still have to go through. There are several departments they have to talk to."

The commissioners then heard from the concerned citizens on hand for the second week in a row.

Portland resident Tom Young returned having done some research since last Monday's meeting, and presented commissioners with findings about what other counties had done with their zoning ordinances to ramp up defenses against CAFOs.

Young told the commissioners potential provisions he found including setback requirements from waterways, "good character" provisions and insurance bonds to cover costs of cleanup in case of accidents or abandonment.

"Those are three things that might be tools for us," he said.

Attorney Bill Hinkle spoke of a proposed zoning change in Delaware County which specified lagoon setbacks from certain areas such as schools, churches or corporate limits - but did not include from waterways - as well as provisions for a bond. Delaware County may pass the additional restrictions as an amendment to its zoning code, a move that Jay County could make as well.

Rural Portland resident Carter Leonard said he was familiar with similar provisions in other counties.

"I know they're out there. I know they've been passed," he said, but admitted, "I don't know if they've been challenged ... I don't know where to even look for that."

"I like the good character idea," said rural Dunkirk resident and Jay County Planning Commission member Paula Confer later in the meeting. "If it's someplace else they screwed up, we don't want them to come here and screw up."

Commissioner Milo Miller interjected however, that his goal isn't just to pass a bunch of heavy restrictions, but ones that are reasonable.

"Our intent isn't to stop people from doing what they want on their property," he said. "It's a free enterprise."

Leonard countered by saying the restrictions don't have to be necessarily prohibitive and could be authored so that more stringent rules could be lessened if a developer would be willing to meet special criteria. For example, a setback could be reduced if a company would be willing to install a waste digester.

"I think we need to be creative," he said. "That's what I ran across, in the more restrictive areas they had more alternatives."

Leonard continued to push commissioners toward more restrictions, stating that while farms have expanded and grown, the guiding ordinances have not kept pace.

"The farming industry has gone from the mom and pop to industry," he said. "We're talking 6,000 head - that's not a mom and pop."

Commissioner Jim Zimmerman disagreed, being a livestock operator himself, saying that CAFOs are already heavily regulated on waste management, much more than the popular belief.

"We have a CAFO permit," he said of his family operation. "We're governed a lot stricter than cities and towns. When people in public think we're not regulated, we are."

Despite Zimmerman running a CAFO and naturally being in defense of his industry, he stressed that in his capacity as commissioner he puts the interest of the county first.

"If this is a bad location for this operation, I'm not in favor of putting it there," he said.

"Not all farmers are good neighbors. We (Zimmermans) are extremely careful with what we do. Is everyone? No. If this is a bad location, I don't want it there."

Rural Portland resident Glen Priest expressed his concerns about the advent of large CAFO and CAFO expansions in the county and wanted to know what, if any, oversight agency handles the proposals. He said he thinks that more and more CAFOs have relocated to Indiana due to lagging regulations while compared to neighbors such as Michigan or Ohio and wanted to know who decides whether a CAFO can locate in the area.

"I'm concerned about a sense of inevitability," he said. "There's a sense of 'we're going to do this.'"

Jay County Soil and Water Conservation District educator Bettie Jacobs said the Indiana Department of Environmental Manangement plays a major role in the decision making process, but that her department also took on the local role.

"There are two sections of IDEM (Rooijakkers) are working with," she said, informing those on hand that the dairy had completed the permitting process. "Now they have to through the other section ... they have to go through the department of water quality."

Jacobs echoes an earlier mention that, locally, Rooijakkers has taken no action, as it is still working through an extended and complex process to get set legally.

"We have heard nothing," she said. "There are other guidelines they haven't met yet."

Bearcreek Township resident Tom Laux, who lives near the proposed site, said he can't believe a CAFO of that size wouldn't cause pollution. Laux said he also believe that manure spread on fields in the area is certain to cause trouble.

"There will be accidents," he said. "Can't stop people from doing business but I'd hate to see the river trashed."

The conversation wound down and the commissioners, with more food for thought, still are struggling to find an appropriate way to alter local law to protect the county and its resources in this specific case without, in turn, hurting opportunities for animal agricultural in other areas.

"I think we'd like to see something done with setbacks from flood plains, but it has to be realistic," Miller said. "State says 300 feet is enough. Have they done all their legwork or should we make it more restrictive? Is 300 feet from a flood plain far enough?"

Preliminary plans held by Daniels and by Jay/Portland Zoning and Planning director Bill Milligan show the lagoon is located about 500 feet from the flood plain.

The topic will need to be discussed and hashed out by the Jay County Planning Commission at its next meeting at 7 p.m. on April 9 in the courthouse auditorium. The commissioners will likely send a recommendation, though what exactly is still to be decided, to the commission for consideration.

"We're going to look at it and see what we can do," Miller told those on hand. "Thanks for all your input."[[In-content Ad]]