Limits of patience being tested (02/09/07)

Frustration and resentment are reaching a boiling point.

That's what happens when citizens feel their elected officials are unresponsive and disingenuous.

For years now, the Jay County Commissioners have been weighing the issue of how to cope with the transformation of agriculture in the 21st century; how to balance individual property rights of both farmers who want to pursue a new avenue of economic growth and their neighbors - often farmers as well - who are concerned about odors and potential environmental damage.

It's a complicated issue, one that spurs passion on both sides.

But in this case, it's been made worse by a series of delays and interruptions that's beginning to look like nothing more than foot-dragging.

More than two years ago, the commissioners handed the problem off to a broad-based committee that studied it for months. That panel, which had strong representation from livestock producers involved in large-scale animal feeding operations, came back with a set of recommendations.

The recommendations weren't perfect, but they were a step in the right direction. If implemented, they might have reduced the sense of powerlessness that now afflicts so many rural residents.

But they were shelved. For more than a year, nothing happened.

When voters took their complaints to the commissioners again last summer, the recommendations were shelved once more. This time, the logic was that the problem was best handled at the state level by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and farm policy makers.

At the time, we backed the decision to delay local action because new state guidelines were expected within a matter of weeks. To our knowledge, they never materialized.

The county then responded by having a study of the issue conducted by Ball State University, but that study - which the planning commission recently received - has come up short. It focused on the economics of the situation but provided no guidance in the area of environmental policy.

Today, the latest strategy seems to be to bounce the whole mess to the Indiana General Assembly, hoping that lawmakers in Indianapolis can come up with legislation that makes sense for all parties.

But in the meanwhile, through this years-long process of debate, study, and stall, thousands upon thousands of new swine have made Jay County home. Growth in the livestock industry has actually accelerated during a period when local officials have been asking for patience.

As the tone at recent meetings demonstrates, however, there are limits to that patience. And from here, it looks as if those limits were exceeded long ago. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]