For
immediate release: January 13, 2006
For more information, contact:
Rich Sievers at 712-668-4833
Iowa CCI: 515-282-0484
Odebolt,
IA – Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement members
and Sac County residents are pleased with the withdraw of a 5,000-head
hog factory permit application that was originally slated for Wheeler
Township in Sac County. The application, by West Des Moines based
company Meadow Crossing Farms, was heavily contested by Iowa CCI
members since it was submitted in August of 2005. Iowa Select Farms
was also involved as the contract company for the site.
“In our opinion, this hog factory
application was riddled with problems. We believe it was wrong for
Sac County and wrong for Iowa,” said CCI member Rich Sievers
from Odebolt. “We really appreciate our county supervisors
standing with the community.”
In September, the Sac County supervisors
voted unanimously to recommend to the state to deny the permit application.
CCI members raised several concerns with the application including:
- Spreading manure on highly erodible land
- Underestimating the amount of manure
to be produced at the site
- Using outdated numbers to calculate
the amount of nitrogen in the manure
- Failing to properly and openly identify
all other Iowa Select Farms operations
“Stopping this hog factory from being
built is an important victory for our community,” said Sievers.
“But we know that the fight is not over – that we need
to keep fighting so that counties can have local control over the
siting of factory farms.”
Mike Blaser, one of the owners of Meadow
Crossing Farms, is a Des Moines attorney who has done legal work
for Iowa Select Farms. Iowa Select Farms is the largest factory
farm corporation in Iowa with 150,000 sows in 2005 according to
the Successful Farming magazine Pork Powerhouse list and plans to
add an additional 20,000 sows.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
is a 30 year old organization with thousands of members across the
state from all walks of life who talk, act and get things done on
critical issues affecting everyday Iowans. For more information,
visit www.iowacci.org.
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