Illinois Tries to Get Ahead of Factory Farm Stampede Ravaging Rural Communities

Indecent in Illinois - The Price of Pork, (Chicago Tribune)

The dangers and costs of vectoring millions of tons of factory animal manure into water, communities and homes have spurred legislation in the Illinois statehouse.

Four bills have been introduced that offer citizens, communities, tourism interests, and small farmers a measure of standing to halt and regulate a health and environmental tragedy unfolding in Illinois.

Write David Jackson and Gary Marx in the Chicago Tribune this week:

As pork producers exploit weak laws to build and expand large hog confinements across rural Illinois, neighboring farmers have complained their rights are being trampled while waste spills poison local streams and sickening gases ruin families' lives and property values.

But after years of frustration and legislative inaction, lawmakers on Tuesday announced four new bills that would tighten Illinois' lax environmental protections and give local citizens more input in the permitting process, as well as standing to challenge the massive facilities in court.

The political fight is bear-bones, and the viability of large swaths of rural Illinois, safe groundwater and surface water lies in the offing as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia from pig feces "mixed with airborne animal dander and fecal dust" destroy, degrade and drive away whatever is encountered by this toxic plume.

The Illinois interests who have brought this tragedy to the fore are property owners watching valuations plummet, advocacy groups such as Illinois Environmental Council, small farmers, rural communities and old-fashioned, investigative journalism.

David Jackson, Gary Marx and a group at the Chicago Tribune published an investigative series entitled the "The Price of Pork" in 2016-17. Notes a copy-editor in the Tribune piece this week:

The bills, proposed in response to the Tribune's August investigation, 'The Price of Pork,' would represent the first significant reforms to Illinois' 1996 Livestock Management Facilities Act, which has been criticized for failing to keep pace with the dramatic growth of swine confinements. Holding thousands of pigs and sometimes producing millions of gallons of manure annually, the operations now account for more than 90 percent of Illinois' $1.5 billion in annual hog sales.

'What is going on in our rural communities and to many of our farmers and farm families is wrong and unjust and we can do better than this for them,' Fulton County farmer Craig Porter said Tuesday at a Springfield news conference held by Democratic state Sen. David Koehler of Peoria, a sponsor of two of the bills.

Factory farm interests are predatory and sociopathic and work in states across the country.

Entire communities in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin are watching Illinois to see how the state defends itself.

Taping the cruelty and pollution that occurs in factory farms is being targeted by corporate interests who have been working since 2012 to make dissemination of factory farming in operation a crime, (Mother Jones), (NYT).

Illinois Swine Factory Plans Killed Following Rural Opposition

Citizen's Water Lobby Days in Wisconsin signals
mounting action against industrialized agriculture
in the Midwest, (Facebook)

County Farm Bureau Moved Decision

A massive proposed swine CAFO in downstate Illinois has been killed following an outcry by rural neighbors and small farmers, signalling mounting concern for clean water and rural life against industrialized agriculture.

In Wisconsin, 1,000s are expected to descend on Madison Feb. 8 to protest proposed CAFOs in central and northern Wisconsin.

Well-organized Wisconsin groups are eyeing citizen action in Illinois.

Report Gary Marx and David Jackson in the Chicago Tribune:

Facing opposition from local farmers, one of the state's largest pork producers has pulled its application to build a hog confinement in downstate Fulton County, handing opponents a rare victory in their efforts to slow the growth of the massive livestock facilities in the state.

The hog producer, an affiliate of Professional Swine Management, formally withdrew its notice of intent to construct from the Illinois Department of Agriculture last week after sustained protests from neighbors who feared that waste from the proposed 20,000-hog confinement could foul rivers and creeks, and that the operation might ruin roads and jeopardize their rural way of life.

'It's a great thing,' said Fulton County crop and livestock farmer Matt Howe, referring to the decision to cancel plans for the hog confinement. 'Twenty-thousand animals is a monstrosity. I don't count it as agriculture.'

Two weeks ago, Howe resigned from the Fulton County Farm Bureau's board of directors to protest the group's apparent support for the facility, initially called Cleer Farm and recently changed to Memory Lane Acres. Howe said his own farm and home sit just 3,000 feet from the proposed site.

Last Wednesday, the Fulton County Farm Bureau held a meeting in which a handful of farmers voiced continued opposition to the facility, according to Farm Bureau officials and participants.

'They wanted to know our concerns with the hog confinement and why we were opposing it,' said farmer Craig Porter, who is also a member of the local Isabel Township Board.

The next day, Professional Swine Management pulled the plug on the project, though the company could submit a new application that would restart the permitting process, state agricultural officials told the Tribune.