1. Tighten existing regulations;

2. Transfer regulatory oversight to the IEPA; and

3. Authorize local governments to determine where and whether mega-livestock operations should be allowed.

As out-of-state corporations like Land-of-Lakes of Minnesota and Murphy Farms and Hanor Farms of North Carolina, began siting large hog confinement facilities in Illinois several years ago, the public outcry from local residents grew more vocal and more visible. Letters to newspapers, letters to legislators, and demonstrations against companies have become common occurrences. In retrospect, these events were a real turning point in the public's perception and tolerance of farming practices. Farming in Illinois has never been viewed as, or held to an operating standard of, an industrial complex. The farming community, through its various organizations like the Illinois Farm Bureau, has continued to portray the agricultural industry in rural Illinois as a quilt of small hard-working family farms producing grain and raising a few livestock. In the past several years, radical changes in the pork industry have done a lot to change that perception and invite public scrutiny.

Because of economic difficulties in the livestock industry in 1994, Governor Edgar established the Livestock Industry Task Force in 1995 and appointed IDOA Director Becky Doyle to chair the Task Force. The Task Force was composed of representatives of the various parties involved in the issue, and it was heavily laden with representatives of the livestock industry. The mission of the Task Force was to develop strategies to improve the livestock industry in Illinois. In 1996, the Task Force was given an additional charge of examining and developing environmental guidelines for the livestock industry.

The result of the Task Force's work in fulfilling its charge was the passage of the Livestock Management Facilities Act by the Illinois General Assembly in the spring of 1996. The only provision of the LMFA to take effect immediately was the prescribed setbacks from residences and populated areas for the siting of a large livestock facility. Emergency rules were adopted in the fall of 1996 for the other provisions of the LMFA. Those rules were adopted as final rules on May 20, 1997.

Public concern over the laxity of the LMFA and the final rules persisted. Environmental groups in Illinois, including the Stewardship Alliance and Families Against Rural Messes (FARM), continued to argue that the oversight of mega-hog facilities was not sufficient to protect the environment and public health. In response to this continued opposition, the General Assembly reexamined the LMFA and its preamble, which states, "Current regulation of the operation and management of livestock production is adequate for today's industry with few modifications." In the 1997 fall veto session, amendments to the LMFA were adopted, and certain provisions of regulatory oversight were strengthened. The "adequacy" of the LMFA, however, remained suspect.

A court case by Knox County challenging the agricultural exemption of large livestock facilities from county zoning was filed last year. The lower court ruled in favor of the operators of the hog facility, and the County has appealed. In an attempt to accelerate an ultimate decision by the Illinois Supreme Court, 56 state's attorneys filed a petition with the high court in November asking for an expedited decision on the case. The petition was denied, and the date of a final decision by the Illinois Supreme Court is uncertain.

 

Waste:
The LMFA fails to address adequately the issues of large livestock waste management. An entity known as Prairie View Farms intends to site a large hog operation on property located in Schuyler and Fulton counties, and it is a good example of the weakness of the LMFA. The proposed facility, will be comprised of eight separate confinement buildings spaced at least one-quarter of a mile apart. Each will have a breeding herd of 5,200 sows per site for a total of 41,600 sows. This combined operation is expected to produce between 800,000 to 900,000 piglets annually.

High density yields intense waste. Three thousand sows produce 1.1 million gallons of waste each year, and a 1,000-sow farrow-to-finish operation may create up to 40,000 pounds of dead animals -- pigs that die before the end of the production cycle. The Prairie View Farms operation is estimated to produce over 15 million gallons of manure and tons of dead animal waste each and every year of operation. The potential risk to the environment is obvious and staggering. The facilities will be built near the La Moine River and the Sugar Creek, which are within the Illinois River watershed. The recently amended Livestock Management Facilities Act ought to address each stage of development and ongoing management of the operation. It does not.

The Prairie View Farms' operation is not required to submit a waste management plan to the Department of Agriculture for approval. The threshold for submittal is 7,000 animal units or 17,500 pigs at one facility. Because the operation will have separate buildings spaced far enough apart, each facility will be treated as a stand alone operation. This avoidance of regulation is compounded because the company plans to build waste storage pits under each confinement building. With regard to waste storage, the LMFA only addresses the design and construction of waste lagoons, not waste storage pits. A leak or spill from a waste pit does not need to be reported to either the IDOA or the IEPA. Contamination of surface water and groundwater from any source is ultimately the responsibility of the IEPA, but the LMFA does nothing to enhance IEPA's ability to prevent contamination of our water from animal waste storage pits.

The spreading of animal waste on farm fields has been a long-accepted waste disposal and fertilizing technique in the agricultural industry. But high density means intense waste on hog farms. The procedures prescribed in the LMFA for applying waste to farm fields are narrowly written. The application standards based on agronomic rates are only for nitrogen. Studies have shown that application rates based solely on nitrogen limits may yield excesses in other by-products such as phosphorous and potassium. Given the fact that hog manure may contain up to I50 volatile elements, the standards are, at best, very weak. Because Prairie View Farms will not be required to file with or get approval of a waste management plan from the IDOA, it could be years before any effective analyses of manure application is performed, if ever, on the 15 million gallons of waste expected annually in Schuyler and Fulton Counties.

The current law and rules do not require the reporting of a previous citation or violation of agricultural or environmental practice by a proposed owner, operator, or waste facility manager. An out-of-state corporation intending to build a mega-livestock operation does not have to inform the State if it has had any history of failing to provide adequate environmental safeguards. A person seeking certification to become a livestock manager does not have to inform the State of any previous violations. This potential problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the LMFA makes no distinction between an owner and an operator of a facility. This makes it virtually impossible to track the amount and level of out-of-state ownership of large livestock operations. Furthermore, the definition of a "person" in the LMFA can mean "any individual, partnership, co-partnership, firm, company, corporation, association, joint stock company, trust, estate, political subdivision, state agency, or any other legal entity or their legal representative, agent, or assigns."

Odor:
The LMFA fails to address odor control in any acceptable manner. Attempts to control hog odor are accomplished through proper designs of facilities and waste storage systems, good management practices, and distance. All of these have economic consequences and are not a guarantee to alleviate the problem. The State of North Carolina, the number two hog producing state in the country behind Iowa, created a Swine Odor Task Force in 1995. This Task Force concluded that it is, "unlikely that North Carolina will solve its swine-odor problems without cost or inconvenience."

Research on the subject continues at the University of Illinois and elsewhere to develop new technologies and methods to solve the problem of swine odor. The fact remains, however, that solutions are not keeping pace with the trends of livestock density and the pervasiveness of swine odor. Maintaining acceptable distances from hog confinement and waste storage facilities remains an appropriate solution for odor. But the LMFA's setbacks are insufficient and are easily circumvented by producers laying out smaller confinement facilities in a pattern so as to mitigate the prescribed distances from residences and populated areas.

The LMFA states in its preamble that, "Since the majority of odor complaints result from manure application, livestock producers must be provided with an educational program that will enhance neighbor awareness and their environmental management skills, with an emphasis on the management of livestock wastes." The intention to protect the environment through this process of educating and testing prospective managers of livestock facilities is appropriate, yet legitimate questions have been raised about the certification process developed by the IDOA with input from the pork industry. Two representatives of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, not schooled or experienced in agricultural practices, took the three and one-half hour class and the 100 question multiple-choice test. Both received more than the 70 percent proficiency requirement and noted the lack of questions related to agronomic rates and waste application, the biggest contributors to odor problems. The IDOA recently has revised the exam, and the state should continue to review and refine the educational requirements and testing to be certain that certified managers really are qualified to run these facilities in a manner that is safe for the environment.

Local Control:
The current Act provides no local control over the siting of large livestock operations. A public hearing may be requested under certain circumstances, but local government is powerless in any attempt to prevent a siting which adheres to the existing rules. In reviewing comments from the public and from local officials about large livestock facilities, it is apparent that many local officials want to control the siting of a mega-livestock operation in their counties.

For example, the Schuyler County Board passed an unenforceable resolution opposing the construction of any additional "mega-type" farms until better rules and regulations were adopted by the State to protect the county's citizens. In Jo Daviess County, a Board Member stated that the State should treat these facilities as commercial industries subject to local zoning. In Knox County, legal action, (Docket Number 4-97-912), has been initiated to give local control over the siting of facilities in the county.

The call for local control of this issue by rural residents has not been limited to concerns over odor and the potential contamination of local water supply and wells. People have voiced concerns about the potential loss of property values and the likelihood that this type of development will be in direct conflict with locally adopted strategic plans for community and economic development. The siting of these facilities without local control can further erode a rural community's ability to shape its collective social and economic destiny.

 

One, the existing regulations need to be tightened considerably. The example of regulatory bypass by Prairie View Farms could in fact be the tip of the iceberg in Illinois' current receptivity to really big hog operations. The Livestock Facilities Management Act is so riddled with loopholes that Illinois could rapidly be home to a proliferation of large livestock confinement facilities producing tens of millions of gallons of manure and mountains of dead animals with a passing glance of regulatory oversight. The LMFA fails to protect adequately local residents from extreme levels of odor, contamination of local water supplies, lower property values, and conflicts over development strategies.

Other recommended changes to the LMFA include prohibiting previously sanctioned companies or individuals from operating a facility in Illinois and creating a more rigorous certification process for managers of large livestock facilities.

Two, regulatory oversight of large livestock operations should be transferred to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. After nearly three years of examination and analyses under the leadership of the IDOA and after the passage of two bills by the General Assembly, Illinois remains in a very environmentally vulnerable position. The Illinois effort to regulate the pork producing industry remains a game of catch-up. The focus has been on waste lagoon management when the industry has now moved to constructing waste storage pits. The intent was to protect the environment and the health and safety of the public, but the reality has been to maintain an industry-friendly field of opportunity.

The concentration of hog production within smaller numbers of large corporations is undisputed. The movement of the industry toward higher density operations using large confinement facilities is obvious. The trends toward vertical integration within the industry will continue. The hog producing industry is just that, an industry. It is an industry now capable of producing extremely large mounts of waste in a very small area. The industrial operations of the hog production industry should be regulated by the State in the same manner it regulates other industries, i.e., through the powers of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Act specifically declares, "that air, water, and other resource pollution, public water supply solid waste disposal, noise, and other environmental problems are closely interrelated and must be dealt with as a unified whole in order to safeguard the environment." This Act further declares that its purpose is to, "establish a unified, state-wide program supplemented by private remedies, to restore, protect and enhance the quality of the environment, and to assure that adverse effects upon the environment are fully considered and borne by those who cause them." To empower the IDOA with these responsibilities in regulating the large livestock industry is to create a bifurcated approach and give the public the impression of industrial self-regulation.

Three, local governments should be given the right to refuse the siting of a mega-livestock operation. Illinois should follow its track record of allowing local communities and counties to determine their own strategic vision for community and economic development. Should a locality choose to pursue a strategy of growth based on tourism and recreation, the State accepts that and has a method of assistance for communities to realize it. If a community wants to pursue growth through commercial business development, the State works in a partnership with the community to help it achieve this goal.

Illinois should follow the same script when it comes to agricultural industrial development. The State should not force through local preemption a development strategy in conflict with what local citizens want and have worked to achieve through grassroots efforts. A mega-hog farm sited one-quarter of a mile upwind of a community-supported, restored historical site or a rural bed and breakfast causes local conflict and diverts valuable social and economic resources away from previous development efforts.

Studies have shown that many people would prefer to live in a rural setting, and for the most part, the State of Illinois has given the power to local government to manage that opportunity. Illinois' economic growth as a State comes from the collective development of all communities driven by their abilities to plan and to manage growth. Illinois has had a history of strengthening and supporting local efforts to elevate the quality of life and economic capacity of rural areas. The Livestock Management Facilities Act does not follow that tradition.

Some counties wiIl choose to remain open to large livestock facilities, and some will permit them in specifically zoned areas. Those facilities, of course, should continue to be required to meet the environmental protections called for in this paper.

The issue of local control cannot be resolved, however, by placing an undue burden on county officials, i.e., forcing county boards to establish siting criteria and to mandate regulatory oversight of facilities in operation. To do so would place these local officials in the unwanted position of having judicial oversight. These regulatory activities should be functions of the IEPA. Appropriate local control can be accomplished through an amendment to the Counties Code to expand the land use powers of county zoning to allow for the restriction and/or prohibition of large livestock operations.

The Illinois Counties Code (55 ILCS 5/5-12001) should be amended in the second paragraph first line by inserting after, "with respect to land used or to be used for agricultural purposes except for the operation of raising in total confinement more than 500 animal units as defined in the Livestock Management Facilities Act....." And amended in the second paragraph last line to read, "As used in this act, 'agricultural purposes' do not include the extraction of sand, gravel or limestone, and the operation raising in total confinement more than 500 animal units of livestock as defined in the Livestock Management Facilities Act, and such activities may be regulated by county zoning ordinance even when such activities are related to other agricultural purposes.

February 5, 1998