This constitutional amendment was sold to the legislature as a "win-win" pro-business and pro-environment. Not so. SQ 683 was simply corporate welfare targeted to benefit a select group of polluters. Rural county coffers would have been the victims.

The ballot language indicated that certain personal property, if used as pollution control property, would have been exempted from ad valorem tax.

The legislature had defined the qualifying property in House Bill 3278, which would have come into effect upon passage of SQ 683. The property which qualified was virtually anything that meets the existing rules of the Oklahoma Environmental Quality Board (or those programs delegated to it by the Environmental Protection Agency) that "prevents, monitors, controls or reduces air, water or land pollution."

Proponents of this measure, whether out of ignorance or outright deception, tried to mislead the Oklahoma public. They claimed that the tax exemption would apply only to pollution control property mandated after January 1, 1999. We sent out copies of HB 3278 and asked people to read the bill for themselves. It clearly stated that any property "used on or after January 1, 1999" would be eligible. So, virtually all such property in use right now would become tax free.

Rural counties would have been especially hurt by passage of this amendment because of the types of industries located there. Unlike metropolitan areas that have large retail and service segments which contribute to the tax base, rural counties often attract refiners, waste dumps and slaughterhouses. While all those industries are valuable to society, they also contribute vast amounts of pollution. Much of their plant and equipment could fall under the ad valorem tax exemption provided by the new law. Rural counties which could least afford the loss in tax revenues would be hardest hit.

Although the giant hog operations that have recently covered our landscape do not currently fall under the rules described, the EPA plans to require federal permitting of all concentrated animal feeding operations in the near future. State legislators have also proposed moving jurisdiction for CAFOs to the Department of Environmental Quality. So, huge corporate animal factories could have fallen under these same ad valorem tax exemptions. Every swine sewage pit and irrigation dumping system could have become tax free. Most of the language in HB 3278 came from lobbyists who represent polluters. The big bucks financing the campaign for passage of SQ 683 came from the same polluters.

On November 3rd, the people preserved the Oklahoma State Constitution and voted down SQ 683. It was a great victory for the hardworking and straight-thinking citizens of our state.

A new not-for-profit corporation has been formed according to the laws of the State of Oklahoma for the following purposes:

1. To protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment through educational efforts and through the vigorous and faithful enforcement of the environmental protection laws of Oklahoma and the United States.
2. To help reach solutions to problems faced by family farmers and rural communities through advancement and protection of their social, economic and educational interests so that those who are engaged in the various branches of agriculture in the State of Oklahoma may have an opportunity for prosperity and happiness in their chosen work.

This corporation will not engage in any influence of legislation or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office. An immediate fund-raising campaign will be initiated in order to help family farmers in their efforts to obtain enforcement of state and federal laws and to further the educational pursuits of the Foundation. Everyone on the mailing list for this newsletter should receive more information about the Foundation in the near future.

Another group has been added to our ever-widening circle of organizations concerned about concentrated animal feeding operations: Common Cause of Oklahoma. This is the state chapter of a national organization that has been in existence for more than 20 years. The purpose of Common Cause is to promote honest, open and accountable government. Some past accomplishments of the group are financial disclosure in state political campaigns and the opening of legislative committee meetings to the public. Those of us who have been active in CAFO regulation efforts join Common Cause in concern about conflicts of interest by members of state boards and other public officials. For more information about Common Cause, call (405) 329-3505 or write to P. O. Box 456, Norman, OK 73070.

Litigation. On July 23, 1998, the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), represented by the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of Worcester County against Tyson Foods, Inc. for willfully over-applying chicken sludge on its farm near Berlin, Maryland, and polluting the ground and surface waters of the State.

MDE alleged that Tyson over-applied sludge to its 139 acre farm by subsoil injection at a rate of 12,000 to 16,000 gallons per day since January 4, 1997, and the sludge contained nitrogen, phosphorus and metals which are known to be hazardous to waters of the State and public health.

MDE asked the court to grant an injunction which would prohibit Tyson from future sludge application by soil injection or any other method, require Tyson to conduct a study of ground and surface waters of the State to determine the extent of contamination resulting from land application of chicken sludge, require Tyson to submit and implement a plan to address the handling, transportation and disposal of all sludge generated from its poultry processing operations, and assess civil penalty. Under Maryland law, Tyson can be fined up to $10,000 per day per violation. Attempts to work with the company to reach an acceptable settlement were unsuccessful. Runoff from this and other operations in the area have been linked to the now well-known outbreak of Pfiesteria piscidia last summer.

New Laws: Who's the leader? It is often stated that Oklahoma's new hog law makes us a national leader, but Gov. Parris Glendening (D) of Maryland (since re-elected as governor) has made the same claim with the well-respected Washington Post backing him up.

According to the Post, in April "Maryland adopted the nation's most comprehensive mandatory limits on farm fertilizer. The measure was vociferously opposed by the poultry industry and other farm groups and after its adoption many farmers threatened to leave the state. Those threats soon subsided, though, when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed national guidelines similar to Maryland's." (Way Down on the Farm, by Steven Ginsberg, Oct. 23, 1998, pg. F1.)

COLORADO

On November 3rd, Amendment 13, a hog industry initiative to oppose regulation, was defeated by a better than 60% loss. More importantly, Initiative 14, to give Colorado basic protections from hog farms, passed by an even greater margin.

The ballot duel in Colorado was an outgrowth of a battle between National Hog Farms, Inc. and Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz in the late 1980s. With a long-running feud between the two, Anschutz contributed all but $16,000 of the $268,000 raised by the coalition behind the antipork ballot. The pork industry raised $427,000, spending $365,000 of it on a petition-signature drive.

SOUTH DAKOTA Voters in South Dakota passed an initiative expanding the state's corporate farming law, which currently prohibits corporations from owning agricultural land and operating farms, to also prohibit corporations from owning livestock. Amendment E also incorporated the corporate farming law into the state's constitution so the state legislature will not be able to weaken it. Amendment E was initiated by Dakota Rural Action and the South Dakota Farmers Union, and passed by a 59-41 margin. (GOP Governor William Janklow opposed the initiative.)

ILLINOIS In Illinois, there was an advisory referendum in four townships, with 73% voting for a moratorium.

Missouri's attorney general, Jay Nixon, filed an amicus curiae brief in federal court to bolster a lawsuit brought by 60 farm families against pork giant Premium Standard Farms, alleging a slew of waste spills. Mr. Nixon contends the company "runs a Jurassic pig operation."

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is the latest of a number of state politicians calling for an investigation into the pork industry. Branstad says there needs to be an investigation into why when farmers get low prices for hogs, they are not passed on to consumers at the market.

In September, two states overturned laws protecting feedlots from lawsuit by neighbors. These rulings handed affected citizens a powerful weapon to fight large hog operations that they contend pollute air and water.

The Iowa Supreme Court issued a decision overturning, in a strongly worded opinion, the provisions of the "Hog Lot Law" in Iowa which provided confinement producers with protection from `nuisance' lawsuits. Declaring the law "flagrantly unconstitutional, Justice Louis Lavorato said the immunity amounted to taking away the property rights of nearby residents.

A Washington State court also overturned a nuisance law protecting feedlots, holding that it was an unlawful "taking" of citizens' rights to sue over injuries to themselves.

The crisis created by animal factory production (CAFOs) damages more than water quality and property values; it is destroying the family farmer as well. The giant pig and poultry corporations created the animal factory system to speed up production and lower corporate production costs. To do this, these corporations have created a contract production arrangement that often impoverishes owner/operators while making them solely responsible for the environmental damage the system causes. Increasingly, family farmers are in middle with no way out.

A new 17 minute videotape, produced by the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club entitled, "An Uncertain Future", looks specifically at the plight of contract poultry growers in the factory animal system.

"This video is an ideal primer on the current CAFO crisis in the chicken industry," said its producer, Chris Bedford. "It is designed to help farm and non-farm audiences understand that the Sierra Club promotes sustainable agriculture that helps family farms prosper while protecting the environment."

"An Uncertain Future" is available from the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club postpaid for $20. To order send a check for twenty dollars made out to the Maryland Chapter/Sierra Club to:

Maryland Chapter/Sierra Club
#7338 Baltimore Avenue
Suite 101A
College Park, Maryland 20740

In early December, the Halifax County Board of Supervisors adopted a moratorium on permits for new hog operations. A citizens group pushed the ban on new permits, which will be in place until supervisors resolve how much land must be set aside, called setbacks, to protect property owners from the operations. In a 6-2 vote, supervisors adopted a temporary ban on permits for new hog operations or expansions after rejecting a resolution offered by Southside Concerned Citizens. The final motion that was adopted read "to direct the county staff to cease approving permits until the Board finishes its work on this issue."

In mid-December, a group of southwest Iowa pork producers invited hunters to haul out their rifles and shoot hogs to highlight the plight of the American farmer. A suggested donation of $100 was asked for participation in "Hog Hunt `98", with the hunters being allowed to do what they want with the hogs they shot. The idea surprised state officials, who said Iowa's hunting laws do not cover domestic animals.

Gov. Jim Gilmore says he wants to spend more than $48 million to fight pollution in Virginia's rivers. "A clean environment is a vital part of a high quality of life," Gilmore said in a December press conference. "My number one priority on the environment is clean water." He proposed spending $192,000 of the river cleanup fund to review management plans for livestock farms.