Des Moines Register
11-29-07
State asked to pay to fight manure odors
By PERRY BEEMAN • REGISTER STAFF WRITER • November 29, 2007
A state task force Wednesday recommended that the Iowa General Assembly
enact a $22.8 million plan to pay livestock operators willing to fight manure odors
voluntarily.
The proposal came from an unusual alliance of Iowa's top agricultural and
environmental officials, including Iowa State University agriculture dean
Wendy Wintersteen, state Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and Iowa
Department of Natural Resources director Richard Leopold.
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The money would help operators pay the cost of installing new equipment or
changing farm operations.
Iowa has approximately 5,000 large livestock farms, and more than 10,000 farms
with at least some livestock. The program would cover all livestock species.
The money would come from a legislative appropriation. Members of the
bipartisan legislative odor panel seemed generally supportive of the budget. Still,
Sen. Paul McKinley, a Chariton Republican, said he wants to make sure the
spending would produce noticeable results when Iowans have varying levels of
sensitivity about the issue.
"We could spend $500 million, and we'd still have complaints," McKinley said.
"Even by state standards, $23 million is a fair chunk of change."
Leopold said the original proposal was cut by 40 to 50 percent to make the plan
more cost-effective and politically palatable for lawmakers. It was important, he
said, to offer the staff needed to help farmers who agree to pursue the voluntary
projects get the practices in place.
The program would include cost-share money for already studied techniques
such as biofilters and changes in animals' diets that can reduce manure and
methane production, and for more experimental techniques such as ultraviolet
radiation treatment of wastes and the use of air-scrubbers.
Of the $22.7 million, $6.5 million would pay for employees, equipment and
maintenance.
Livestock odors have been a central issue to residents and neighbors in more
than a decade of bitter debate over Iowa's move to larger livestock confinements,
which store more manure in fewer places. Iowa is the nation's top hog producer
and a major supplier of eggs, chickens, turkeys and cattle.
The new plan would use monitoring and cost-benefit analysis at several hundred
farms to check which techniques work best, and where, Northey said.
"That information is needed so farmers know what they can do to help," Northey
said.
Wintersteen added that individual farms' test results would be shielded from
public view to encourage several hundred farmers to participate.
Iowa does not regulate odors from livestock operations, and this plan requires
nothing of farmers.
A 2006 Iowa Department of Natural Resources report detailed a multi-year odor
study in which 7 percent of 1,708 measurements verified odor problems.
Reporter Perry Beeman can be reached at (515) 284-8538 or
pbeeman@dmreg.com