Smithfield and other large industrial agriculture livestock producers are always looking for new places to put their animal factories. That’s why dozens of communities are afraid of waking up one morning to industrial-sized sewage lagoons, huge animal-confinement buildings and fields drenched with millions of gallons of hog urine and feces.
These citizens have learned over the past twenty years that their state and federal governments are not going to take any action to protect them from the agricultural giants. As a result, they have taken it upon themselves to work with their local county and township governments to pass health ordinances that restrict the ability of the corporate livestock producers to set up animal factories in their rural neighborhoods.
The citizens have a reason to be concerned. For example, in the northwest region of Missouri the inventory of hogs increased 68% from 1990 to 2002.1 The north-central portion of the state experienced a 165% increase in the hog population over that same twelve year period. The western and southwestern quadrants of the state experienced a 26% and a 34% increase.2 It is no surprise that these are areas of vigorous local legislative activity to restrict the growth of CAFOs.
The local residents in one north-central Missouri County tried to pass a zoning ordinance in the 1990s restricting agricultural structures. The Missouri Court of Appeals in 1997 ruled that the counties of the State do not have the jurisdiction to enact such zoning restrictions. Following that decision, the counties and townships redirected their energies towards passing “health ordinances” in order to control CAFOs. The Missouri Court of Appeals approved such ordinances in a 1999 decision.3
The counties have the power to make rules to enhance the public health and to prevent the entrance of dangerous diseases into the county. Given the nature of the CAFOs, the public health experts which make up the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, among others, have held that they can be the source of dangerous diseases and could be a detriment to the public health.4 The health ordinances were passed to protect local water supplies and the quality of air.
The local health ordinances are able to regulate a CAFO with 750 or more swine over the weight of fifty-five pounds. The ordinances prevent CAFO construction without previously obtaining a health permit from the county. The ordinances set maximum concentration levels for the following gases: carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane and carbon monoxide. The ordinances establish how far away one CAFO must be from another CAFO, or from residences, populated areas, public areas, sinkholes, strip pits, wells, springs, streams or water supply sources.
The ordinances also require the CAFO operator to post financial security to pay for the eventual clean-up and disposal of improperly handled waste from the facility .
In Missouri, 16 counties have passed county-wide health ordinances restricting CAFOs. In western Maryland a swine CAFO, built within a quarter mile of twenty-five residences, came under scrutiny after local residents, especially the elderly and asthmatics, began to experience severe respiratory and gastrointestinal problems. After the State failed to act, one Maryland county adopted the State’s first zoning ordinance aimed at controlling the development of swine CAFOs. The State is planning on requiring all CAFOs within Maryland to have a Federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permit.5 In 2006, The Board of Supervisors of Kern County, California, unanimously passed a local ordinance regulating CAFOs within that County. Similar ordinances have been considered in other states, such as Indiana.
As is so often the case, it is up to the individual and their neighbors to fight to protect the quality of life that they are entitled to expect in a rural community.
1 The Missouri Swine Audit: An Analysis of Missouri’s Competitive Position in the Swine Industry. University of Missouri Extension Swine Team (April 2007) (accessed April 29, 2009 at
http://agebb.missouri.edu/commag/swine/audit/chapter2.htm)
2 Id.
3 Borron v. Farrenkopf, 5 S.W.3d 618 (Mo. App. W.D. 1999).
4 Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America. 2:10, 11, 13(2008)
Osterberg, D. & Wallings, D. Addressing Externalities from Swine Production to Reduce Public Health and Environmental Impacts. 94:10 Amer. J. of Pub. Health 1703-1708 (Oct. 2004).
5 See, http://www.mde.state.md.us/assets/document/CAFO_revised_draft_5.23.08.pdf
