Editorial: Loophole lets pork industry spoil air, water

Iowa’s environment is a disgrace.

Our rivers and streams are polluted. The lakes in some of our state parks are so contaminated a dog can’t wade into them without the risk of being killed. The stench and the noise and the flies associated with large-scale hog confinement operations are driving other businesses and homeowners out of rural Iowa.

Some of these problems, if they’re to be corrected, will require a fundamentally new approach to regulation, a reversal of state policy and a massive infusion of public money. But other problems are easier to address — or would be if only our state lawmakers had the courage.

As The Des Moines Register’s Donnelle Eller reported, some Iowa hog producers are taking advantage of regulatory loopholes and are doing so at the expense of nearby families, schools, businesses and churches.

Under Iowa law, new animal-confinement facilities with 2,500 or more pigs must apply for a construction permit that’s subject to review by state engineers. Such a facility must be located at least 1,875 feet from residences, businesses, churches and schools, and 2,500 feet from any public-use areas, such as parks. They are also subject to review by county supervisors who can give local residents an opportunity to comment on any proposed facilities.

But those restrictions don't apply to confinements with 1,250 to 2,499 pigs. Those facilities must submit only a construction-design statement to the state and county, and stay 1,250 feet away from neighbors.

The state has even fewer restrictions on facilities with 1,249 or fewer hogs. Facilities of that size are not required to maintain any separation at all from neighbors and they need not submit manure-management plans. In fact, Iowa has so few regulations governing these smaller operations that state officials can’t even say how many of them exist.

Imagine buying a home in rural Iowa only to find out your neighbor plans to construct a 1,000-hog confinement facility adjacent to your property. You’d have little or no recourse other than to move — which wouldn’t be easy since no one in their right mind would buy a home located next to a hog-confinement operation.

To make matters worse, some large-scale pork producers are now using the state’s numerical cutoffs to their advantage, rigging their operations to conform to the precise language, rather than the intent, of the law to avoid the higher level of oversight they’d otherwise incur.

Theoretically, Iowa regulators should be able to treat multiple, adjacent facilities with common ownership as one large confinement, imposing on them all of the customary construction and setback requirements associated with larger operations.

But some producers have set up multiple limited liability corporations that name different individuals as owners. So even though these facilities share the same water, driveway and other infrastructure, they're treated as individual, small-scale operators.

“It's a problem that's rampant in the state," says Diane Rosenberg, director of Jefferson County Farmers and Neighbors.

A confinement with 2,499 pigs — just one fewer than the number that would trigger additional state regulation and public input — will soon be next door to the family farm of Monte Marti in Allamakee County. Reicks View Farms had initially proposed building three confinements, housing a total of 7,499 pigs generating 5.8 million gallons of manure annually, but ran into state and local opposition.

In fact, state engineers rejected Reicks' initial proposal, citing problems with the construction plan. Iowa Department of Natural Resources Director Chuck Gipp remains concerned, saying Reicks has selected a "poor site" for a large-scale feeding operation.

But Gipp can’t do much about it. Iowa’s administrative rules clearly give Gipp the authority to “deny a construction permit, disapprove a manure management plan or prohibit construction” of a confinement if the project will have “an adverse effect on natural resources or the environment.” But these rules are trumped by state law, and the Legislature’s Administrative Rules Committee has determined that the DNR “does not have authority to create additional procedures and standards” beyond what’s spelled out in the statute.

So it all comes back to Iowa legislators. Any hope we have of cleaning up our rivers and streams, or protecting the property rights of homeowners and family farmers, hinges on lawmakers’ willingness to stand up to the lobbyists who have a stake in Iowa’s $17 billion pork industry.

Iowans shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for that to happen — although, if they live downwind from a hog-confinement facility, they’re already doing just that.