Premium Standard Farms, which operates swine CAFOs (contained animal feeding operations) in three northern Missouri counties, sustained a body blow when it lost a lawsuit to four families in September of last year. The families had sued over destruction of property values as a result of the CAFOs, and the jury awarded them $4.5 million.

Premium Standard Farms is a Goliath and can easily shell out 4.5 mill, no problem.  The problem is that 53 other plaintiffs had, at that time, also filed suit.  And if they were to prevail, more would surely follow.  A few million here, a few million there.  Before you know it, Premium Standard Farms could be facing a serious outlay of cash.

So the corporation took steps.  It supported a bill offered last spring by Senator Chris Koster (R.–at the time, Republican–Harrisonville).  SB 364 would have restricted anti-CAFO activists in two important respects.

First, it would have forbidden “nuisance” lawsuits.  Indeed, Premium Standard Farms tried to sell this legislation to rural citizens as an innocent attempt to rein in city folk who come to the country and find that the normal activities of farmers don’t fit their romantic notions of country life.  The said “city folk”–according to Premium Standard Farms–file nuisance lawsuits against farmers who combine at night and against farmers whose combining kicks up dust.

But while such frivolous lawsuits have no doubt occurred–rarely–the real point of SB364 was to make those loss of property values lawsuits disappear.  The legislation was aimed not at city folk but at people who had lived on the land for generations.

The other agenda of the bill was to prevent local health boards from creating health ordinances that could be used to block the building of CAFOs.  Currently, those county health boards are the only defense communities have in preventing the building of such farms.

Tim Gibbons of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center was one of a group of citizens who met with Koster and implored him not to press forward with the bill.  Gibbons says that Koster negotiated with his group for two weeks about possible changes but never budged on the two crucial points.  Those two weeks, though, gave the Missouri Rural Crisis Center the time it needed to get the word out to its constituents to pressure their Republican senators to oppose the bill.  Their phone calls worked.  SB364 didn’t so much go down in flames as it pooped out, if you’ll pardon the pun.  It wasn’t brought to a vote, because it would have failed.

Premium Standard Farms was essentially kicked out of Iowa in 1989 for insisting on building an unlicensed CAFO near a state park.  It found more fertile ground in Missouri, under then Governor John Ashcroft.  Could be that Missouri, eighteen years later, is about to catch up with Iowa as regards handling this corporate predator.

The statewide Dem candidates have said they’re prepared to return over-the-limit campaign contributions, but Republicans?  Their grab-all-you-can legislation created the mess, and now, clutching the boodle to their breasts, they  whine about giving it back like a five year old who wants to keep the neighbor kid’s toys. 

Rep. Jane Cunningham, a St. Louis County Republican who is running for the Senate, said refunds would be unfair because that would help slow-starting campaigns instead of those who hustled to raise funds early. She could be forced to return $35,800. “It’s not the American way to advantage people who have sat on their thumbs,” she said.

If Republicans “hustled”, to use her word, the definition that applies would be this one:  to earn one’s living by illicit or unethical means.

Case in point:

Last June, Matt Blunt took tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from individuals affiliated with the Dairy Farmers of America, a large milk marketing organization with offices in Kansas City.

Now comes word that the Blunt Administration is providing a five year, no-bid contract to DFA to conduct “state” safety testing on the milk it sells.

Yup, they’ve been hustling.

Case in point:  Hard working citizens near Roaring River are fighting the licensing of a CAFO near the state park there.  The Ozbun family, who applied for the CAFO license, isn’t wealthy, but the poultry processor with whom they contracted, George’s, has the scratch to hire well-connected legal talent.

The lawyer the Ozbuns have hired to represent their interests in Jefferson City is Michael Schmid, an associate in the firm of Schreimann, Rackers, Francka & Blunt in Jefferson City. The Blunt in the firm is Andrew Blunt, son of U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt and brother to Gov. Matt Blunt. Matt Blunt appointed Doyle Childers to head the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which licenses and oversees large CAFOs in Missouri.

There is no record of Schmid giving money to Matt Blunt’s 2004 campaign, but the principals in the law firm now representing Ozbun, or the principals’ relatives, gave at least $7,600 to directly underwrite Matt Blunt’s political ambitions in 2004, according to the database maintained by the National Institute for Money in State Politics.

What a bunch of crooks and liars.

In a speech in Arrow Rock Saturday night, Jay Nixon said a whole slew of things that a Democrat in this state ought to be saying.  He criticized the Department of Natural Resources for failing to protect state parks, according to their mandate.  The DNR is going out of its way to license CAFOs (contained animal feeding operations) next to our state parks.  Nixon also got on the DNR’s case for failing to side with the state in preserving a bridge that is part of the Katy Trail.  Then he criticized the Corps of Engineers for dumping tons of soil into the Missouri River without questioning what effects that might have on wildlife.

“My vision for our state and our state government demands that we return the Department of Natural Resources to its original duty of protecting our state resources,” he said, adding that DNR has taken the side of business at the expense of protecting the environment on key issues.

Right on!

The Columbia Tribune summarized the bridge controversy:

Nixon spoke at length about the Boonville lift bridge, a 408-foot span over the Missouri River that Union Pacific Railroad says it owns and wants to disassemble for use elsewhere. Nixon and others believe the structure is part of the Katy Trail and should be preserved.

A judge ruled in 2006 that the state does not own the bridge. Nixon is appealing that ruling.

“Why in the world would the state offer to give this up?” Nixon asked. “Why is DNR opposing me on this issue and arguing the railroad’s side of this case?”

Powerless to argue with the rectitude of Nixon’s remarks, the Republican spokesman accused him of making a political speech on the public dime.

“Jay Nixon consistently blurs the line between political campaigning and public office, and it’s awfully hypocritical,” Sloca said, noting that Nixon aide Scott Holste distributed a news release about the speech. “It’s unfortunate for the taxpayers who pay Scott Holste’s salary and pay Jay Nixon’s salary that they are paying for what is certainly a political campaign.”

Look over here!  Sloca was saying.  Look over here!  He’s just a politician.  Don’t pay any attention to the substance of his remarks.  (How dare Nixon make well founded accusations on topics that the Attorney General is bound by law to deal with!)

The accusation about pretending to make a policy speech while really making a political one is, truth be told, a charge that both camps trade on an almost daily basis.  Note the latest fundraising e-mail I received from the Nixon campaign:

Matt Blunt recently scheduled the first of several official events through the governor’s office to highlight “the positive impact of the governor’s and his administration’s initiatives in the community.” As the Kansas City Star commented on Friday, “Does this strike anyone as anything other than an early campaign appearance at taxpayer expense?”

In a hotly contested election, with both candidates in office, of course they will use their bully pulpits to get their message out.  The question is whether the political speeches are based on sound public policy.  And anytime Jay Nixon goes after CAFO’s next to our state parks, protects the KATY trail, and calls the Corps of Engineers on the carpet for dumping–without concern for the consequences–tons of soil into the Missouri river, that’s a political speech that ought to be made.

Keep up the good work, Jay.  The public dime is being spent as it ought to be.

photo courtesy of the Columbia Tribune

On few issues is the line dividing Democrats from Republicans 100 percent pure and obvious, and the CAFO issue is not one of them. 

Democrats don’t always behave as I would have them do.  Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton (pictured), for example, is sponsoring House legislation (a companion bill to one being offered by Kit Bond) to have CAFO (Contained Animal Feeding Operation) waste declared non-toxic.  Such a law would effectively remove CAFOs from EPA oversight.

To pretend that animal waste in those concentrations isn’t toxic is horse hockey.  McDonald County, in the very southwest corner of the state, is dotted with CAFOs, and every water body in that county is on the impaired water bodies list.

But when I called Skelton’s office to ask why he is sponsoring this legislation, the aide brushed me off.  I’m not one of his constituents and “congressional courtesy” requires that I bring the matter up with my own rep–as if Lacy Clay has any notion why Skelton would initiate such a law and might be offended if Skelton’s people spoke to me.  Oh.

So I asked our resident “follow the money man” to look into Farm Bureau contributions to Bond and Skelton.  You can examine what he found here, but the bottom line is that both men have had regular contributions from the Farm Bureau. (So have Graves, Hulshof, Emerson, and Akin.  The Bureau gave no money to McCaskill, Cleaver, Carnahan, or Clay.)

Which brings us to the gray area of Claire’s stand on CAFOs.  Her website bemoans how the hog farming industry has been cornered by CAFOs and tells us:

Claire believes we need to stop giving taxpayer subsidies to CAFOs and allow for local control and oversight of CAFOs.

Since she’s not paid by the Farm Bureau, she has the good sense to stand up for family farmers.  Sort of.  At one of Claire’s recent meetings in a rural area, Day Kerr asked her if she supports the Bond/Skelton legislation.  Day tells me that Claire said she did because it would be a hardship on farmers if manure were considered toxic.  Hold on.  That’s not the point.  It isn’t a problem on small family farms, but in CAFO concentrations, it is a problem, especially when that waste is chock full of growth hormones and antibiotics. 

That position seems contradictory to what her website says, so I called to find out about it.  Called three times and left voice messages with the appropriate person.  Nada.  I guess the resounding silence is my own fault.  I made the mistake of letting the office know I’m a blogger, and they probably figure that not commenting is better than digging the hole deeper.  I figure that not commenting just makes her look inconsistent … and evasive.  Difference of opinion.

So much for our D.C. legislators.  Now we come to how Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature deal with the issue, and we’ll start with a man who is from both parties in a way:  Chris Koster.  Last spring, as a Republican, he sponsored legislation that would remove the power counties have to create zoning ordinances and health ordinances that might keep CAFOs out.  There were some sops to the other side (money for odor control and such), but the power to oversee those improvements would have remained in the hands of Farm Bureau proxies. 

Knowing that once they lost their right to zone their own counties, getting those rights back would be near impossible, rural people organized and fought S 364.  They put pressure on their Republican senators to buck the leadership.  When it became obvious that enough Republicans would join the Democrats on this issue to defeat it, the bill was withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jeff Harris (D-Columbia) had been trying to get legislation heard that would ban CAFOs nearer than five miles to any state park, historic site or national historic landmark.  That was an exercise in butting his head against a wall. 

The Republican leadership refused to give the bill a hearing.  Next Harris tried attaching it as an amendment to appropriate bills dealing with agriculture, state parks, or tourism bills.  Every single time, though, the leadership ruled him out of order, pretending that his amendment was not “within the scope” of the bills they were attached to–which was a flaming … misrepresentation.

Harris feels that, considering the number of Republicans willing to switch sides to defeat Koster’s bill, his bill and amendments stood a good chance of passing.  The Republican leadership was simply too scared to put it to a vote.

The Democratic record on CAFOs is not, as I said, 100 percent pure.  Skelton, McCaskill, and Koster have some ‘splainin’ to do.  But on the whole, I’ll take the Democratic record on this issue over the Republicans’ record. 

One thing for sure:  it’s going to take a huge commitment from local activists to prod the legislature into staring down the forces of the Farm Bureau.

A determined coalition is up against the big boys here in Missouri on the issue of factory farms.  People near Arrow Rock, Roaring River, and Battle of Athens are pitting themselves against, for starters, the Missouri Farm Bureau, a powerful organization indeed. When it tells the governor and Republican legislative leaders to jump, don’t look for them to be squatting in place.  They know which side their campaign coffers are buttered on.

The Farm Bureau basically sells insurance to 100,000 Missourians, the majority of them farmers.  It holds itself out as an advocate for family farms and claims to limit itself to agricultural issues.  Neither is true.  It speaks on many issues, and on none of them more adamantly than on CAFOs.  There, it employs the stick–fear that if we overregulate CAFOs, Missouri’s hog and chicken raising industry will “move to Brazil”–and the carrot–CAFOs bring jobs to economically depressed areas.  That jobs claim is hokum.  A few people get to be hog janitors, others get to work in a processing factory, and everything about the industry is so integrated vertically by big ag that the peons are no better off than they ever were. 

Whitney Kerr, a member of the coalition that is planning legal action to stop the CAFO near Arrow Rock, points out that the Bureau has never asked him or other ordinary members what stands it should take on any issue.  Kerr feels that the Bureau is in cahoots with the industrial/agricultural giants and is carrying water for Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield, and MoArk, among others.

He objects to the Bureau’s claim that factory farms are the future of agriculture in Missouri.  Twenty years ago, before CAFOs appeared in this state, hogs were raised in open fields and the manure was spread over a large area.  Under those conditions, the streams and water table were safe. 

But about 1994 CAFOs began appearing in Missouri.  They often brought environmental depradation.  Not only are the clean water supplies of any given area threatened by the concentrated application of feces, but those feces come from animals who have been given antibiotics all their lives.  Furthermore recent studies show that many crops grown on ground where this “fertilizer” has been spread, soak up those antibiotics.  That’s some fertilizer.  The predominance of CAFOs means that we are eating antibiotics, so city dwellers, whether they know it or not, have a stake in this issue.  As The League of Women Voters points out, “If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.”

Now if those hogs had been raised like those in the picture, with some room to breathe and move, instead of being crammed in so tight they can’t even turn, those antibiotics wouldn’t be necessary.

Furthermore, the CAFOs have put those who raised hogs in a humane, environmentally safe manner out of business.  Today, 85 percent of small hog raisers are no more.  Those few who still raise hogs on family farms are hard pressed to find buyers for their hogs because the big ag companies have contracted with CAFOs.

This sea change in Missouri agriculture has occurred in less than fifteen years.  As the evils of the new system have dawned on those living in the middle of it, some have decided to resist.  A group of resolute rural Missourians is fighting to preserve their homes as well as our state parks and historic landmarks against odor, against the threat of water pollution.  They are taking to the field on behalf of small farmers being driven out of business by invading corporations. 

The first two postings in this series were billed as part of a three-part series.  I had barely an inkling then of how many facets the CAFO topic has.  When I get to part Twenty of this three part series, that resolute band of Davids will still be contending with CAFOliath–not as if they can slay him but in the well grounded hope of exerting reasonable control.  The Davids will work for smaller CAFOs with more humane treatment and no antibiotics, and for better waste management and watershed management.  They’ll be pushing for legislation to keep CAFOs away from state parks and historic sites.  More counties will enact health ordinances to protect themselves.  CAFOliath won’t lie lifeless on the ground, but he might be tamed.

In defiance of the DNR’s constitutional mandate to protect the health and well being of Missourians,  to protect the quality and quantity of water in the state, and to protect our state parks and historic sites, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is determined to license CAFOs. 

As I reported in my last posting, the DNR just last Friday licensed a chicken CAFO on the uplands above Roaring River State Park, less than a mile from the park boundary, and it is set soon to do the same for a hog CAFO less than two miles from Arrow Rock State Park, close to the village of Arrow Rock, a picturesque historic site, known for its historic Lyceum Theater.

Despite noisy and often emotional protests from those who will be living with the stench and who are likely to lose their livelihood from the local tourist industry, the DNR has proceeded.  Doyle Childers, DNR director, insists that he is bound by law to grant licenses to CAFOs that meet the legal standards for preserving local water quality.  But that claim is …please pardon me …hogwash.  Or, if you prefer, chickenshit.

He and his agency are doing far more than acquiescing to the law.  They are bending the law–ignoring it, even–so that they can grant those licenses.

Consider:  The DNR is bound by law to protect water quality.  CAFOs, by their very nature, threaten local water supplies.  As I mentioned before:

McDonald County, in the southwest corner of the state, has plants operated by Tyson, Simmons and MoArk, with CAFOs for all three corporations.  Every water body in that county is on the impaired water bodies list.  Despite the danger of water pollution, the DNR granted the Ozbun family [next to Roaring River State Park] final clearance last Friday to begin operating their chicken CAFO.

Any time a CAFO operator knifes tons of hog or chicken feces into a relatively small area of land, it can seep down into the water table.

Consider also:  The DNR granted the license to the Ozbuns despite a stay (that is, a court injunction) against the continued construction of their CAFO.  Citizens of Roaring River appealed to the Administrative Hearing Board for a stay on construction of the Ozbun chicken CAFO and it was granted.  Nevertheless, the Ozbuns kept building and the DNR let them.

Once construction was finished, the DNR sent an engineer to certify that the CAFO had been constructed as designed.  He refused to put his seal on it because the stay was still in effect.  So the DNR sent another, more compliant engineer, who did affix his seal.  And the license was granted. 

Who cares about some silly old legal stay? 

The arrogance of the DNR and Childers in thumbing their nose at the law fair takes one’s breath away, especially since they insist that (imagine here the sad wag of Childers’ head) they simply had no choice but to grant the license.

Consider, finally:  The DNR is mandated by the state constitution to protect state parks and historic sites.  Yet the feces from the Arrow Rock hog CAFO could be spread within fifty feet of the park boundary if a local landowner gives permission.  Common sense–not to mention a dollop of empathy–would forbid allowing a CAFO in that vicinity.  But if the DNR lacks common sense, it should at least obey the law and protect the parks and historic sites from the stench.  Missouri has one of the best state park systems in the country, being consistently rated in the top five.  No.  Make that “HAD” one of the best state park systems.

Obviously, only legal action by committed citizens will stay Childers and the DNR from their cavalier disregard for our citizens and our natural resources.  More on that topic tomorrow, in the last of this three part series.

photo courtesy of the Village of Arrow Rock

All right, you city folk, buckle up, because I’m about to take you on a ride out into the country to find out about a battle that’s brewing.  A group of Missourians is girding to fight more than City Hall.  Citizens near the state parks in Arrow Rock, Roaring River and Battle of Athens are about to sue the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the state of Missouri over CAFOs (contained animal feeding operations).

The dispute began when landowners applied for CAFO licenses near those three state parks, and the DNR supported them at every turn against the objections of other locals.  After all, a farm with 4800 hogs or 65,000 chickens stinks to high heaven.  And aside from their own preferences about not having to live with that stench, many local landowners get their livelihood from the tourist industry in and around the state parks.  (“Hey, Joe, what say we go down to Roaring River this weekend for some trout fishing?”  “Sure.  Sounds good.”  “It is good, long as you don’t mind smelling chicken shit while you’re casting.”  “Um, no thanks.”)

Roaring River State Park (the lodge is pictured above), in the southwest corner of the state, is a premier trout fishing site with a hatchery near the spring that feeds the stream.  A local family, under contract with George’s Processing, Inc., a poultry company with facilities throughout northern Arkansas and southwest Missouri, applied for a license for a 65,600 chicken CAFO on the uplands above the spring, about a mile from the park boundaries.  The DNR quickly granted the Ozbuns permission to begin building, despite community concerns about what would happen if the toxins from all that chicken poop found their way to the spring or the river.

The folks at Roaring River are right to be concerned about that possibility.  McDonald County, in the southwest corner of the state, has plants operated by Tyson, Simmons and MoArk, with CAFOs for all three corporations.  Every water body in that county is on the impaired water bodies list.  Despite the danger of water pollution, the DNR granted the Ozbun family final clearance last Friday to begin operating their chicken CAFO. 

A similar situation exists near Arrow Rock State Park, west of Columbia, where a 4800 hog CAFO is being planned less than two miles from the park line and from the historic town.

The DNR insists that it had to grant the Roaring River license and the Arrow Rock construction permit because state law mandates that it ignore the issue of odor and rule on whether or not a CAFO operation will affect the water table or local streams.  Apparently, Doyle Childers, the head of the DNR, is not convinced that CAFOs might pollute the water.  And there is no state law forbidding them because of odor or because of pathogens from the feces.

The planned lawsuit intends to force the state of Missouri to consider the problems of odor and pathogens.

Consider how newly built CAFOs deal with the feces.  A given house for hogs or poultry is usually built now over a concrete vault, kind of like an inground swimming pool, about an acre in size and eight feet deep.  The animals stand atop this vault on a concrete cover with slots in it for the waste to go through. 

About twice a year, when the waste gets to seven feet deep, the pit is pumped out and the waste is spread over nearby fields.  It can either be sprayed or knifed in (injected about two inches below the surface).  Such a concentration of animal litter has often seeped down through soil and polluted Missouri streams. 

Huge fans circulate the air in the CAFOs 24/7 because, if they stop, the air is so poisonous that the animals soon begin to die.  If, for example, a power outage were to stop the fans, the hogs would begin to die within two hours from exposure to methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia.  The hogs are packed in so tight that they cannot even turn.

Aside from how disgusting it is to treat animals so inhumanely, consider how health-threatening it would be to live near such an operation. 

Although no “conclusive evidence” has shown CAFOs are a source of diseases, Carlson [of the Department of Health and Senior Service] told the crowd, some studies have indicated CAFO odors affect quality of life and that pre-existing respiratory problems “may be exacerbated.”

Arrow Rock resident Shirley Gregory, who said she is asthmatic, contended state officials aren’t addressing her concerns.

“When I have to start walking around Arrow Rock with an oxygen tank on my back, they won’t care because the CAFO isn’t what made me sick in the first place,” she said.

The DNR has not only turned a deaf ear to such complaints but has, in its zealous support of CAFOs, ignored its own constitutional mandate to protect not only water quality but also state parks and historic sites.  More on that topic tomorrow.

photo courtesy of Roaring River State Park website