| 12/19/2006 3:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | IDEM's answer gives false idea of county power to ban hog farms
Peggy Vlerebome
Courier Staff Writer
A county's power to regulate confined animal feeding operations does not include banning them altogether, despite what was said at a public meeting Monday night.
Representatives of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management answered written questions submitted before and during a public meeting at the 4-H Fairgrounds. One question was whether a county can prohibit all confined animal feeding operations. The answer was yes.
Afterward, County Commissioner Julie Berry, chairman of a county advisory committee studying possible regulations for such operations in Jefferson County, and committee member Mark Goley approached the IDEM representative who had given the answer. Berry asked him to explain what he meant since the committee has received legal advice that an all-out ban would violate the state's right-to-farm law.
It turned out that he was referring to temporary bans imposed by counties through moratoriums like the one in place in Jefferson County, which expires Feb. 4. "That is altogether different" from a prohibition against confined animal feeding operations, Berry told him.
The IDEM representatives, who work in the Office of Land Quality, conducted the meeting in Jefferson County as part of the process of reviewing an application for a permit to operate a 4,000-hog feeding operation near Kent.
The IDEM representatives said they didn't know when a decision will be made on the permit.
From the answers to questions, the audience of about 100 people learned that the proposed hog feeding operation in Kent has lined up more land than the state requires for the disposal of manure on cropland, and that the manure holding tank underneath the hog barn will have more capacity than the state requires.
The audience also was told that the state does nothing to regulate odors, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will conduct a two-year study of odors and then decide whether states should be involved in controlling them.
IDEM's sole interest in regulating confined animal feeding operations is to guard the state's water supplies, both groundwater such as wells and surface water such as creeks, the audience was told.
The audience also learned that IDEM inspects feeding operations about every five years. The operator of the feeding operation must keep records for the inspector to review, the IDEM representatives said.
|
Article Comment Form
|
