Seward County Drafts CAFO Regulations

Controversy rose sharply when Seward County, Kansas, residents learned that county home rule was restricted from including environmental regulations about confined animal feeding operations after a four month project to develop county level environmental regulations neared completion. Kansas has a provision called county home rule, which basically allows local government to develop regulations about typical county business and in some cases, develop other regulatory programs. The home rule is triggered when there is either no state program for a particular issue or if the legislature passes legislation that is "nonuniform", meaning it does not affect every county in the same manner.

For example, if the legislature passed a law that all eastern counties must provide flu shots through the school superintendent's office, the law would be "nonuniform" because it did not include the western counties. That would allow the western counties to develop their own local program, for example, require flu shots through the county health department.

In the case of CAFO regulations, Kansas basically did not have a state regulatory program last year. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) used in house guidance documents to "regulate" the industry. The Kansas Attorney General gave an opinion in August 1997 that counties could regulate CAFOs. That was before the 1998 legislative session and before Kansas HB2950, which is the Kansas version of a hog bill.

In the early days of pork expansion in Oklahoma and Texas, the Seward County fathers had been "pro pig". Then Seaboard took over Texas County and the residents in nearby Seward County developed a new opinion of pork production-they did not want it. In fact, Seward County grassroots efforts successfully protested the Stanley Acclimation site, with the help of their Oklahoma neighbors and produced over 200 protests in one weekend to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture. The atmosphere had changed and the citizens want to protect their health and environment.

At some point in the legislative session (i.e., between January and March), the Seward County Commissioners advertised a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the development of rules and policies that would satisfy the concerns of their citizenry with respect to CAFOs. The RFP contained eleven specific requirements to be met by the winning bidder. As it turns out, only one person responded to the RFP and was awarded the contract in late May 1998. By that time, the Kansas Legislature had passed HB2950 as the new CAFO legislation for Kansas. The KDHE and Kansas Department of Agriculture were required to draft their own regulations by January 1999 to satisfy specific requirements in HB2950.

The Seward County project began in June 1998, starting with the selection of a citizen's Task Force by the Seward County Commissioners. The Task Force included a pork producer, dairyman, feedlot manager, irrigator, economic development spokesman, citizen group spokeswoman, the mayor of Liberal, the mayor of Kismet, and a county commissioner. The contractor would work with the Task Force all summer developing rules and regulations for CAFOs (not just hog farms, but dairies, feedlots, and chemigation). The Task Force was formed to ensure that all stakeholders would be involved in the development of the regulations.

On November 25th the Sierra Club denounced the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) announcement that the agency intends to buy $50 million worth of pork, as a classic case of corporate welfare.

"Corporate hogs are feeding at the public trough," declared Ken Midkiff, Director of the Missouri Sierra Club. "It is shameful that the USDA and other government agencies give giant agribusiness corporations millions and millions of taxpayer dollars that result in a market glut of hogs, and then invest many millions more to bail them out."

In recent years, large corporations have established massive hog operations throughout the country with equally massive subsidies and financial assistance by all levels of government. These huge facilities have, in turn, glutted the market with hogs resulting in historically low market prices. In the process, the air, land and water around the facilities have been seriously fouled by harmful pollutants. This industry bailout comes at the request of the National Pork Producer's Council, one of the primary advocates for corporate hog interests in America.

"USDA should be directing aid to family farmers and independent producers, as they are the ones who have really been harmed, and in some cases, literally run out of business," continued Midkiff. "But this is pork barrel spending at its worst."

In key states such as North Carolina, Iowa and Missouri, family farmers have been forced out of the hog business because they are unable to sustain the below cost prices. The corporate swine operations-with giant companies Seaboard, Murphy's, and Continental Grain leading the way -have received hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer provided subsidies in gaining this market control.

"This display of corporate welfare stinks," said Midkiff. "It stinks almost as bad as the giant hog factories themselves."

The Sierra Club and other environmental organizations have aligned with family farm groups and rural communities throughout the country to rein in this takeover. Environmentalists and rural residents are alarmed by pollution entering local streams, rivers, lakes, and estuaries and by the overwhelming stench emanating from operations with 2500 to 250,000 hogs.

A recent TIME magazine series documented the government largesse flowing into the corporate hog operations. ("The Empire of Pigs" Time, November 30, 1998.) The authors used as an example Seaboard, Inc., an agribusiness with annual revenues of $1.8 billion with operations in places ranging from Ecuador, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Kansas, to Haiti. Seaboard has received more than $100 million in subsidies, incentives, government backed bonds, and grants from municipalities, counties, states, and the US Department of Agriculture.

During the development of SB 1175, representatives of Tyson's Pork Group argued that the company may not be able to stay in Oklahoma if the bill were to pass. Only five weeks after the bill was signed into law, Tyson announced the addition of 40 new projects in Hughes, Okfuskee and Seminole Counties.

Tyson first constructed on sites that had been licensed but not built before regulations had been imposed on hog operations. Because these sites were licensed before regulations, the surrounding property owners were not allowed to have a hearing of protest at the Department of Agriculture. These sites will at least be subject to the monitoring of lagoons.

Next, because most of the licensed contract farms in this area are well below the 1,000 animal units that would require a new permit for expansion, many of these are being expanded or have already been expanded. Again, the neighbors are left out of the process.

Our worst fears were realized when one of the only two construction permits requested since SB 1175 went into effect was for a 1,000 animal unit offsite nursery to be located no more than onehalf mile from the South Canadian River. The location is close to nesting sites of Least Terns, an endangered species. It is no more than thirty miles from Lake Eufaula. The only road to the site winds through the small town of Lamar. Tyson trucks are noted for driving at excessive speeds on rural roads. If allowed to proceed, this site can only be a disaster to the environment and the people living in the area.

We have also been informed that Creek Indian Nation land has been chosen as the site for a hog facility. As Indian land is not under the jurisdiction of the State of Oklahoma, the regulations under SB 1175 would not apply to a swine operation built on this property and therefore would be quite appealing to the hog industry. We can only hope that the Creek Nation leaders will have the wisdom to see the danger of this venture.

The known expansions and planned expansions still do not total 40 sites. We can only hope that future planned expansion can and will be built under the regulations of SB 1175.

--Contact Rosalie Darks, an active member of "Save Our State", at (405) 794-9813

Personnel from Yale University's Environmental Policy Clinic visited the area in early November. Charlotte Boulind and Amy Chapin with Yale's School of Public Health and Amanda Moore from the School of Law were in the area for further research. They are the authors of a recently published study entitled "Controlling Odor and Gaseous Emission Problems from Industrial Swine Facilities."

The study is a handbook for interested parties concerning the odorous emissions from factory hog farm facilities. It was done in cooperation with the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, in Poteau, Oklahoma. Michelle Stephens, Rural Development Coordinator from the Kerr Center accompanied the group, along with Don and Joyce Ukens, Hooker, and Janelle Smalts, Norman. Saturday morning, the group toured a Vall production facility. To better understand the impact of the factory hog industry on its neighbors, the group visited with Vancy and Delmer Elliott at their home Southeast of Guymon. They also traveled through Hooker to Bob and Julia Howell's rural home, where they observed Seaboard's controversial Dorman Facility, with its close proximity to the Beaver Wildlife Management Area in Beaver County.

The Kerr Center states, "Because odor and gas emissions from industrial swine facilities can cause a quick , dramatic decline in the quality of life for people living nearby, we hope this study will provide the basis for a healthy dialogue on how to solve these problems and put the `fresh' back into country air."