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Commissioner Ross To Propose CAFO Ordinance

March 27, 2006
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Fellow Opponents of the Dairy Factory in St. Joe County:

As you probably read in the SBT this morning, things are heating up. Commissioner Steve Ross has put forward a draft ordinance regarding the establishment of new CAFOs in SJC.

In summary, the draft ordinance leaves CAFOs as a permitted use. It does not make them a special use which would automatically trigger a public hearing and a vote by the council. Instead, it requires new CAFOs to get a permit from the Board of Health. It gives the Board of Health all sorts of criteria to consider in weighing the impact of such a CAFO on public health and safety, and to hold a public hearing on the matter. The ordinance also creates an Agricultural Review Board (2 big farmers, 2 little farmers, 2 rural residents, and 1 commissioner) which will review all CAFO permit applications and advise the Board of Health. The ordinance also gives the Board of Health the power to impose whatever additional contingencies on the permit may be necessary to protect public health and safety, such as additional setbacks, groundwater monitoring, windbreaks, financial assurances regarding damage to roads and bridges, etc.

We feel this is a good ordinance. It is a very good starting point to protect the health and safety of the citizens of this county from the potentially disastrous effects of a poorly-sited or poorly-managed CAFO.

Here’s how you can help:

Ross plans to present this ordinance to his fellow Commissioners (Cindy Bodle and Mark Dobson) at next Tuesday’s (3/28) 10:00am commissioners’ meeting on the 4th floor of the County-City building. He hopes to get them to support the ordinance and endorse it with the Council. Once he gets that endorsement, he plans to ask the Commissioners to enact an immediate moratorium on all CAFO building permits until the ordinance receives a final vote from the County Council.

This will be a public meeting. Concerned citizens can (and should) come to the meeting and speak out in favor of this ordinance, and especially the moratorium. All public comments will be limited to 3 min. each which is strictly enforced. So, make it short but compelling! We need to fill the room to show how concerned the whole county is about this issue.

If you can’t come, send someone in your place, but call or write Commissioners Dobson and Bodle to voice your support for this ordinance and the moratorium.

Please call or e-mail this notice to everyone you know who is energized on this issue.

We have 1000s of petition signatures and phone numbers that we would like to call between now and Tuesday. If anyone would like to help with that effort, please e-mail us at limitsjccafos@aol.com and we will gladly give you a list of numbers to call.

Thank you.

St. Joe County Quality of Life

Commentary by Joseph Miller:

Hi All,

The message above is a very important request from the members of St. Joe County Quality of Life (SJCQOL) -- a group I support. This will be a very important meeting. Please attend if at all possible.

While the draft ordinance that is being proposed is better than no ordinace at all, I disagree with SJCQOL's statement that it is "a good ordinance." I would, however, agree that the proposed ordinance as a "very good starting point."

All residents in St. Joe County will be affected by the proposed Dairy CAFO (and all the other CAFO proposals that will follow if this one is approved). The proposed makeup of the Agricultural Review Board in the draft ordinance is too narrow, and excludes all non-farm and non-rural interests. We need to make certain that the rights and interests of all families, children, and communities in the county relative to CAFOs are respected. Whether these broader rights and interests will have an opportunity for expression in the proposed Board of Health sponsored public hearing (the rules and procedures for such a hearing are unspecified) is unclear. The Agricultural Review Board cannot be the only mechanism for public input.

The threats posed by Walnut Grove and other potential CAFO proposals are huge. As I indicated in the South Bend Tribune last Sunday (Voice of the People, March 19): "Citizens and professionals throughout the country increasingly recognize the serious threats posed by CAFOs. Based upon this extensive evidence, resolutions for moratoriums on new CAFOs have been issued by the American Public Health Association, Michigan State Medical Society, Canadian Medical Association, and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (www.factoryfarm.org)."

While I'll support the draft ordinance if it's the best ordinance we can quickly achieve to address the looming threat of the Walnut Grove CAFO, we really need an ordinance that allows much more input and review. Such an ordinance would require all CAFO proposals to receive a special use permit from the St. Joe County Council. Full public hearings would then be mandated before a decision is made to grant or not grant a special use permit, and the Board of Health would then be one of many agencies and constituencies that would provide public testimony. The decision of the County Council would then be subject to another level of review by the County Commissioners. Such a tiered review system allows much more public input, is much more democratic, and provides much more opportunity for review.

Best,

Joe

Joseph Miller
Chair
Dept. of Psychology
51 Madeleva
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Office Phone: 574 284-4532 (4534)
Fax: 574 284-4716

St. Joseph County Commission Office

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County-City Bldg., Room 7th Floor
South Bend, IN 46601
Phone: 574.235.9534

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St. Joe Valley Greens, South Bend, IN