Des Moines Register
04-30-06
DNR looks to slow livestock facilities
PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Livestock confinement construction in Iowa is headed for a fourth straight record year, and state regulators are considering a new attack on pollution from those operations.
The debate focuses on Iowa Department of Natural Resources director Jeff
Vonk's campaign to consider more factors before approving permits, including whether the manure would be spread on leaky soils, which could threaten waterways.
Farmers say tougher regulations are unneeded and say the state is making a power grab. Environmentalists favor the move as a way to reduce pollution in a state where waters are heavily polluted by agricultural runoff.
The debate is important because the hog business, which accounts for most of the permits, is a $12 billion industry accounting for 63,000 jobs in Iowa. The issue affects urban-dwellers and rural residents alike because confinement construction is pushing closer to the Iowa Great Lakes and the state's most populated counties.
In addition, the pollution can make drinking water more expensive to treat; pose health threats to swimmers, waders and canoeists; and make it tougher to catch fish in places.
The growth in confinement construction doesn't necessarily mean there will be more hogs in Iowa. Many of the projects shift hog production to newer, modern facilities. Iowa is among the states with strong pork sales, and farmers say consumers demand cheap pork that can be raised most efficiently in the industrial-style confinement buildings.
Vonk wanted to start subjecting confinement proposals to a broader environmental review this spring, because he believed the record pace of construction would continue. He proposed an emergency rule last year.
Livestock-industry leaders demanded time to comment, suggesting the rules were so vague that farmers wouldn't know how to comply.
"The industry thinks it's a stretch of our authority," said Vonk, whose department is relying on a couple of state laws, one of which charges DNR staff with protecting the environment.

Public comments
Now, state livestock-program coordinator Gene Tinker is assembling a summary of 150 public comments on the move before state lawyers decide whether any rule amendments are necessary. The Iowa Environmental Protection
Commission is expected to consider the rule at its June 19 meeting, two months later than originally planned.
Many farmers oppose the rules. Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, an environmental group that has pushed for many new regulations, supports it.
"There are people who think we are being too strict, and people who don't think we are being strict enough," Tinker said.
Wayne Gieselman, the state environmental-protection chief, said the rule was launched in part because farmers were building operations just under permit limits in areas prone to pollution problems, and hauling manure so far that counties were complaining about road damage.
Another issue is that environmental officials worry the new operations being built will create too much odor and too much manure to spread in certain areas.
In 2005, farmers and developers took out 203 confinement construction permits, mostly for hog operations. That was more than double the year before, and a third straight record. This year, the state already has issued 68 construction permits and has 121 applications pending.
That isn't the whole story, though. Smaller operations don't need permits. Last year, 425 smaller operations were built. Through the end of February this year,
52 were planned.
Operations with 2,500 or more adult hogs have to have permits and manuremanagement plans. Smaller ones have to submit the manure plans but don't need a permit. Farmers are constructing two buildings, each holding 1,200 hogs, to sidestep the permit requirements. The new rules would be another way to regulate the operations, large or small.
Gieselman said the state has rejected five permits this year, often because manure-management plans were incomplete or didn't meet limits on applications, but in the past often didn't reject any in a year. He predicted more applications would be turned down under the new rules as the state tries to avoid overloading some areas with livestock, and manure applications.
Vonk said the state held off on the new rules because he could see the controversy brewing. "It appeared we were heading for court in any case, so we figured we might as well not give them another reason to sue," Vonk said of

livestock interests.
Eldon McAfee, lawyer for several major livestock groups, said farmers strongly oppose the rules as vague and unnecessary, especially after three major laws and a host of new rules were passed in the past decade.
"The feeling is they are buried with regulation, then here comes this rule that says that even if you comply with state law, the department can still say no,"
McAfee said.
But others want more than the new rules. Mel Berryhill, a Milford resident who helps fight hog confinements planned for sensitive areas, said county governments need the power to decide where the operations go — an idea that state lawmakers vehemently oppose. Berryhill and dozens of others in the Iowa
Great Lakes tourist area
— including state environmental commissioner Donna
Buell — unsuccessfully fought a 4,000-hog confinement now under construction a few miles west of Milford. Several years ago, local opponents bought land from a farmer who wanted to raise hogs south of a county park. This time, Berryhill said, "people didn't have the money to fight it."
Berryhill said opponents are frustrated by a state checklist intended to force farmers to reduce environmental impact — but easy to pass. "You could take a map and throw a dart at it, and as long as you didn't hit a courthouse square, the site would work," Berryhill said.
The group did manage to persuade the state to investigate concerns that another confinement, in neighboring Emmet County, would threaten waterways in
Dickinson and Emmet counties, where the manure would be spread. Unlike
Dickinson, Emmet has many confinements. In fact, the operation by New
Fashion Pork, a Minnesota-based firm, is eyed for land that has had livestock off and on for decades.
Informal agreement
Years ago, local leaders in Dickinson, Story and Johnson counties forged an informal agreement with hog-industry lobbyists to keep confinements away from those counties. Part of the reason: the presence of the Iowa Great Lakes, Iowa
State University and the University of Iowa. So the Okobojians have been surprised at the recent interest in raising hogs in Dickinson. Johnson County residents have fought proposals, too.
Jefferson County, home to Fairfield and Maharishi International University, wasn't part of the deal. Confinements are starting to move to that county and bordering
Wapello. That sent opponents to the Statehouse to lobby for local control. They also raised thousands of dollars with a benefit concert, planning to take legal action when necessary.

Unless Vonk's new plan helps control the developments, Berryhill said, the courthouse and nuisance lawsuits are some of the few options left to fight the confinements.
"The only thing you can do is fight in court, but that takes a lot of money and it's about a 50-50 chance of winning."