April 24, 2018 at 4:29 p.m.
Questions about CAFOs resonate
Editorial
Every once in awhile, someone writes a letter to the editor striking a chord that resonates beyond the day of its publication.
It gets people thinking. It poses questions. It challenges the status quo.
Jeanna Ford’s letter a few weeks back was one of those letters.
In case you missed it, Jeanna’s letter brought the issue of local regulation of confined animal feeding operations back into the spotlight.
She acknowledged that — as someone who lives in town — she hadn’t paid as much attention to the issue as she could have.
And she shared her concerns about friends living in rural Jay County who have found that the continued growth of CAFOs has effectively imprisoned them in their home due to ongoing problems with flies and odor.
She also shared her sense of helplessness.
After all, it wasn’t too long ago that county government — commissioners, planning officials and a bunch of volunteers serving on committees — spent months on the issue.
Comments were heard, opinions were aired and decisions were made on zoning regulations, where local authority ends and state authority takes precedence, and what sort of setbacks need to be in place to protect nearby property owners.
Talk to most of the folks who were involved in that process and you’ll find there’s no eagerness to take up the issue again.
But, in its own way, Jeanna’s letter argued that things have changed.
Today, she said, the sheer numbers and concentration of CAFOs in rural Jay County demand that the whole thing be given another look.
Rules and regulations and setbacks that made sense just a handful of years ago may not be relevant to the reality today.
Is it time, she wondered, to reconsider?
Maybe setbacks ought to be re-examined.
Maybe a total limit — call it saturation — ought to be established for the county.
Maybe state legislators ought to be lobbied to give local authorities more power when it comes to things like regulations on the spreading of manure.
Local elected officials — particularly those who went through the last round of debate and discussion — show no enthusiasm for sorting out those topics.
But Jeanna’s questions aren’t going to go away. They continue to resonate. — J.R.
It gets people thinking. It poses questions. It challenges the status quo.
Jeanna Ford’s letter a few weeks back was one of those letters.
In case you missed it, Jeanna’s letter brought the issue of local regulation of confined animal feeding operations back into the spotlight.
She acknowledged that — as someone who lives in town — she hadn’t paid as much attention to the issue as she could have.
And she shared her concerns about friends living in rural Jay County who have found that the continued growth of CAFOs has effectively imprisoned them in their home due to ongoing problems with flies and odor.
She also shared her sense of helplessness.
After all, it wasn’t too long ago that county government — commissioners, planning officials and a bunch of volunteers serving on committees — spent months on the issue.
Comments were heard, opinions were aired and decisions were made on zoning regulations, where local authority ends and state authority takes precedence, and what sort of setbacks need to be in place to protect nearby property owners.
Talk to most of the folks who were involved in that process and you’ll find there’s no eagerness to take up the issue again.
But, in its own way, Jeanna’s letter argued that things have changed.
Today, she said, the sheer numbers and concentration of CAFOs in rural Jay County demand that the whole thing be given another look.
Rules and regulations and setbacks that made sense just a handful of years ago may not be relevant to the reality today.
Is it time, she wondered, to reconsider?
Maybe setbacks ought to be re-examined.
Maybe a total limit — call it saturation — ought to be established for the county.
Maybe state legislators ought to be lobbied to give local authorities more power when it comes to things like regulations on the spreading of manure.
Local elected officials — particularly those who went through the last round of debate and discussion — show no enthusiasm for sorting out those topics.
But Jeanna’s questions aren’t going to go away. They continue to resonate. — J.R.
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