All over the state, opponents of Missouri CAFOs have been firing between circled Conestogas and waiting for the cavalry to arrive. In historic Arrow Rock Village, for example. Early in 2007, the Department of Natural Resources granted Dennis Gessling a permit to build a 4,800 hog concentrated animal feeding operation two miles from the little town near Columbia–a town that relies on its decades-old summer theater performances and tourism to survive.

Local citizens organized and by October of 2007 had filed suit against the DNR and Doyle Childers, its director, for failing in one of the Department’s mandated duties, the requirement that it protect state historic sites and parks. The pioneers could hear far off bugles, barely audible above the gunfire that fall, when Jay Nixon, the man everyone figured for the next governor, spoke at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Missouri Parks Association:

“I believe that our state is headed in the wrong direction on many fronts, including the protection and preservation of our natural resources, our parks and our historic sites. [emphasis mine]

The settlers held off the assault from Gessling by convincing Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia S. Joyce to rule in their favor. On August 25th of last year, Joyce criticized the DNR for failing to protect the historic site and established a fifteen mile buffer zone, prohibiting CAFOs within that zone.

Although the ruling applied only to Gessling–and despite the fact that his permit expired on August 30th without the proposed facility being built–in September Big Chief Childers of the DNR, in cahoots with the Missouri Farm Bureau and a group of agriculture organizations, filed motions objecting to the ruling. Judge Joyce, still critical of DNR failure to protect historic sites, reduced the buffer zone to two miles.

So not only did the DNR fail in its duty to protect Arrow Rock, it … persisted in pushing for a ruling to benefit a CAFO that wasn’t going to be built? Yes, and in fact, it’s still fighting that battle, even though Dennis Gessling has, months since, walked away from the whole mess.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has confirmed that on Dec. 18, 2008, the agency filed an appeal with a the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District asking it to overturn a ruling by Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce regarding a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) proposed but never built by the Gessling family of Saline County.

Doyle Childers has resigned, effective January 12th, but DNR spokeshole Kara Valentine skates past the notion that a Democratic governor would drop the appeal.

Valentine said that while she doesn’t foresee the new administration changing or dropping the appeal, she said, “they may have thoughts on the direction that they want the appeal to go.”

Valentine “doesn’t foresee” Nixon dropping it? “Doesn’t foresee it?” Well, I foresee it. She’s definitely not in Kansas anymore. She’s surely got to know that Nixon said:

“We must join together to protect our parks as well as our rural farmland from the factory farm and the resulting emissions, runoff and smells. [emphasis mine]

So Miss Kara assumes that Nixon will be eager to ride Doyle’s hobby horse and pursue an appeal to save a CAFO that’s already dead–contrary to Nixon’s stated position opposing CAFOs. Right. Okay, that one ain’t gonna happen. But before you decide that such self-delusion proves the lady is non compos mentis, consider what Farm Bureau President Charles Kruse said after he and his cohorts pressured Judge Joyce to amend her August ruling:

“We are pleased the judge modified her August ruling by clarifying it applies only to the proposed Gessling operation near Arrow Rock, Missouri; however, the fact is there remains no demonstrated need to impose a buffer over and above what is already required by state law and this ruling could set a needless and harmful precedent.

“Harmful precedent.” The situation in a nutshell.

Look. Jay Nixon’s administration may be the cavalry. Think of press conferences as his bugle. For ammunition, he has the power to appoint the Director of the DNR and to use the veto pen if the Republican lege acts up. But Big Ag is better funded than the Injuns were. And it has the sort of legal weapons that could have made Crazy Horse governor of the Dakota territory.

Oh, and don’t forget Big Ag’s willingness to speak with forked tongue:

“Missouri Farm Bureau attempted to intervene in this case as we cannot ignore the fact that production agriculture in the U.S. is under attack. Our nation’s family farmers and ranchers are facing challenges on every front. Regulations whether imposed by administrative rule or court order, must be based on science and fact, not emotion, misinformation and legal technicalities,” Kruse said.

Conflating Big Ag with family farmers is 180 from the truth. And Big Ag is under attack? It’s had the legislature, the boy gov  and the DNR in its hip pocket for the last four years. But the bit that makes me splutter is the insinuation that opposition to CAFOs is not based on science.

Not?

based?

on?

science?

Give me a break.

Those lying, delusional bastards who run rural families out of business and poison the environment want sympathy from their victims?! Breathe, girl, breathe. And remember that the cavalry is coming.

Thank goodness for that, but I don’t look for the Farm Bureau to lay down its weapons just because a Democratic governor has sounded the charge.

Doyle “hitman” Childers will soon, like the governor who ordered the hits, be history. He has resigned his post as head of the Department of Natural Resources and will be gone from the DNR by January 12, if not before.

So long, Mr. Childers, but I’m not wishing you farewell, auf wiedersehen, or good-bye. You deserve none of those. Seeing the backside of you is one of the rewards of getting Nixon elected.

Ken Midkiff of the Sierra Club published an editorial explaining how the DNR has been politicized. Directors usually let the governor know when they plan a controversial action, but for the last four years, the tail has wagged the dog: Blunt has frequently ordered Childers to do his bidding, sometimes using him as a front man even on matters that didn’t pertain to the DNR:

While, no doubt, Director Childers informed Gov. Blunt of proposed controversial actions (such as awarding an operating permit to a 65,500-chicken operation near Roaring River State Park), there is also little doubt that the governor was calling the shots on the Boonville lift bridge controversy, which pitted our attorney general against the DNR director and the governor.

In other situations, Childers challenged Attorney General Jay Nixon on non-environmental matters – such as the amount of money Nixon had “wasted” on unsuccessful lawsuits. There is little doubt that the governor preferred that Childers take the lead on such issues.

The governor even went so far as to call upon DNR’s legal counsel – Kurt Schaefer, now our state senator – to defend the sexist actions of Fred Farrell, the director of the Department of Agriculture, who called his secretary a “show dog” and said she should enter a wet-T-shirt contest. State Treasurer Sarah Steelman refused to cut a check for the negotiated settlement, saying the taxpayers shouldn’t pick up the tab for a “get out of jail” card for Farrell’s actions.

The bottom might have been reached in this politicization when Blunt and Childers had a meeting with the editorial board of the Joplin Globe, a newspaper in southwestern Missouri. It seems the Globe had taken an editorial stance against concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and, in particular, the aforementioned chicken growing operation near Roaring River State Park. Blunt and Childers saw CAFOs as economic development tools, and the meeting with the Globe editor and reporters was held in an attempt to get the Globe folks to change their position.

In the words of one reporter present at the meeting, “We listened politely and then continued doing what we had been doing.” What is remarkable – and probably unprecedented – is that the governor and DNR director traveled more than 180 miles to speak with the editorial board of a second-tier city newspaper to tout their pro-CAFO position.

While there is little doubt that CAFOs pollute, are economically ruinous and are harmful to humans – many credible scientific studies have documented this – the DNR director knew of these studies and chose to ignore them and to advocate for more CAFOs.

Clean air? Clean water? Land stewardship? All of these suffered mightily during Childers’ tenure as DNR director.

The statutory duty of DNR is to protect our state’s natural resources. In his zeal to protect those who would foul the air, water and land to externalize costs, Childers failed in this duty, and he failed mightily. The legacies of the Blunt/Childers years: more impaired water bodies, air in Kansas City and St. Louis is more foul and rural lands across the state are subjected to pesticides, herbicides, over-fertilization and erosion.

It will take many years for our natural resources to recover. Whomever Jay Nixon nominates to be DNR director will spend much of his or her time cleaning up after Childers.

Will there be dancing in the streets of Roaring River and Arrow Rock when Childers has turned in his keys and the door has slammed behind him? Or just an exhausted sigh, buttressed by the hope that the next DNR director will appreciate the scientific arguments against CAFOs. At least, Childers’ successor surely won’t defile our state parks by allowing atrocities close by them that stink so much it’s like having your nasal cavities augured out with a sewage slimed roto rooter.  

Matt Blunt and Department of Natural Resources Director, Doyle Childers drove four hours to Joplin to try to talk the Joplin Globe out of its editorial policy opposing CAFOs.

It is not at all unusual for a Governor or an MDNR Director to call the Kansas City STAR or the St. Louis POST-DISPATCH about some real or perceived slight or mis-reporting. But, it is extremely rare for the Governor or MDNR Director to show up personally in newspaper offices. This had never occurred at the offices of relatively small newspapers, such as the Joplin Globe.

For all the good it did the guv. Which was none. You can read all about it on Ken Midkiff’s site.