The 1996 Livestock Management Facilities Act (LMFA), which claims to regulate hog factories in Illinois, is fatally flawed. In signing the bill into law, Governor Jim Edgar, joined by local legislators, described the LMFA as a "necessary first step." Lessons learned in other states demand that Illinois take additional steps now to protect citizens in and around agricultural communities.

The shortcomings of the law begin with the suggestion that the current regulation of livestock production is adequate with "few modifications." Nowhere is there a recognition that hog factories, because of their size, operation, and ownership, are really a new kind of industry in Illinois. Mega hog production, as it is practiced by Murphy Family Farms and similar corporate producers, is not a simple extension of the family farm. It is a factory, not a farm. We need new rules and regulations to ensure this new industry operates in Illinois as a responsible citizen.

States like Iowa, Missouri, and North Carolina, where hog factories are already operating, have learned too late these mega hog operations perform at best only to the letter of the law. As a result, these states are now busy strengthening the laws governing mega hog farms. Illinois should learn from the experience of others and not repeat the same mistakes.

The LMFA requires a waste disposal plan be filed with the state only when an operation reaches the equivalent of 17,500 adult pigs. Pigs excrete feces and urine at a daily volume of 2 to 4 times that of human beings. Therefore, 17,500 adult pigs in waste disposal terms is equal to a town of 35,000 or more people. The present situation is a little like saying that the rules governing the operation of grandpa's outhouse are okay for a modern municipal sewage treatment facility. Regulations for the waste disposal of mega hog facilities need to start at a realistic level, say 1200 adult hogs, if we are going to protect the citizens living near them.

The 1996 law defines a livestock management facility as a separate, new facility if it is separated by a quarter-mile from similar facilities. Taking advantage of this loop hole, 20 or more hog factories can be installed cheek by jowl in a checkerboard fashion and completely evade state regulation. A more realistic approach would be to expand the separation distance between hog factories to one mile and include common ownership or management in any definition of a common facility.

One other point needs emphasis here. The current law relies almost totally on the Department of Agriculture to enact, monitor, and enforce its provisions. Agriculture promotes hog factories and is thus a poor choice to oversee them. The brother of Becky Doyle, the current director of the Department of Agriculture, runs a mega hog farm. It's like having the local football team select Friday night's referees from the town booster club.

Based on recent experience in North Carolina and other states, this new form of industrial agriculture will impact on a wide variety of public policy areas in Illinois from air and water quality to physical and mental health to community social issues to local real estate values. Consequently, every state agency and department should be involved in the regulation of mega hog facilities. Moreover, this must be done in a statuatory way so that each agency and department is clear as to its responsibilities and a proper system of checks and balances between them comes into play.

North Carolina's experience with hog factories, as described recently on the television show "60 Minutes," makes it clear that additional steps are necessary to protect the environment and rural communities of Illinois. Now is the time to take that second step.

Proponents of mega hog farms argue they encourage rural development by investing in pork production and creating jobs. In fact, hog factories concentrate the pork industry in a few communities that are hard hit by the environmental consequences. At the same time, these mega hog farms displace independent pork producers and drain rural areas of farm jobs and income.

A recent University of Missouri study found that independent producers create 3 times as many jobs as contract producers. Big producers displace more jobs than they create. They are also less likely to do business locally than are small to medium-sized operations. A Minnesota study found that smaller producers spent a higher percentage of their business expenditures within 20 miles of the farm. Most mega farm profits go to outside investors.

Ask yourself, if these hog factories are really more efficient than smaller, independent operations, why do they need the protective cover and tax advantages of a corporation? In other states, hog factories have developed direct links to hog packers thus bypassing local markets. The local markets then go out of business. Next, large packers refuse to accept small lots of hogs from local producers or do so only at discounted prices. The independent producers die when the local markets die. But the price of pork at the grocery store stays high because a few people now control the market.

Proponents of hog factories often cite North Carolina as the wave of the future. Yet, while the number of hogs produced in North Carolina grew 83% in 1985-1992, the number of independent pork producers declined by 50%. Fewer local jobs, lower paying jobs, reduced local spending, less economic diversity, diminshed property values, and eroded tax bases are not the future we want or deserve.

The environmental fallout of the North Carolina example is also discouraging. Mega hog interests concentrated the bulk of the increase in hog production in only four counties in eastern North Carolina. In effect, they created pockets of pollution instead of economic development. Emergency inspections of the state's 3,643 lagoons found 124 full or overflowing, 526 with effluent at higher than desireable levels, and 109 discharging hog feces and urine into creeks, rivers, and streams. In the summer of 1995 alone, several lagoon spills dumped some 35 million gallons of hog manure into rivers and other waterways. The spillage continues to the present day.

And the damage does not end with environmental destruction. Duke University odor expert Susan Schiffmann states that the intense hog odors generated by mega facilities cause tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and even confusion among neighbors exposed to them. Researchers at North Carolina State University have also shown that property values near large-scale swine facilities declined due to odor and related environmental concerns.

To prevent a repeat of the North Carolina disaster, Illinois's Livestock Management Facilities Act needs to be strengthened in areas like siting, lagoon design, construction, and waste disposal. Rural residents have rights too and farm, as well as nonfarm, residents should enjoy the same setbacks from large-scale operations. Moreover, setbacks should increase as operations get bigger. Equally important, the corporate owners of livestock raised on a contractual basis should be held responsible, together with property owners, for any damage or pollution to the environment.

The key to economic development in the rural counties of Illinois is not the number of hogs produced but rather the number of hog producers. Study after study suggests independent producers provide more permanent jobs, larger local retail sales, and more per capita income.

It's time to recognize hog factories for what they are and what they are not. And, if they want to locate in Illinois, it's time to get the rules and regulations in place necessary to ensure they operate as responsible citizens in our state.

Factory-size hog production facilities are invading Illinois following a path of least resistance, that is the path of least regulation. From Missouri to Minnesota, state and local governments are adopting constructive policies that seek to protect the air, water, and quality of life of everyone. Illinois is the last major pork producer to wrestle with the question of how to regulate these new, supersize hog factories. The absence of regulation is the primary reason why distant corporations are hastily plopping mega hog farms throughout the state.

Hog operations that turn out from 75,000 to a million hogs a year are fundamentally different from locally owned and operated farms. As the Illinois Cooperative Extension Service pointed out recently, mega hog operations over-fertilize 10-fold or more the agronomic rate to keep their manure management costs down. Bob Bergland, Ag Secretary in the Jimmy Carter administration, noted years ago that North Carolina's super-concentrated hog industry was in danger of collapse because the land was saturated with hog manure.

The response of Murphy Family Farms and other corporate hog factories has been to relocate, carrying the same bad practices to other states. Around the Midwest, in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, state and local bodies are combatting these environmental carpetbaggers by adopting stricter guidelines in areas like nutrient loading.

Illinois should follow suit requiring facilities with more than 500 animal units (1,250 adult pigs) to file a manure management plan with the EPA. The plan should demonstrate that acreage is available through ownership, lease, or rental contract for waste disposal at an agronomic rate. This agronomic rate should be based on phosphorus and potash as well as nitrogen. Heavy metals like zinc and copper found in hog feed and thus in hog manure must also be monitored. High concentrations of heavy metals resulting from hog factories are sterilizing farm land in North Carolina.

Public notice and local control are other key issues. A variety of states in the Midwest have ordinances in place calling for public hearings and county board approval before mega hog facilities are constructed. It only makes sense. If hog factories are good for rural communities as they claim, let them sell their wares to local citizens like any other new factory or business in town. No hog factory should commence operations in Illinois until it has been approved by the county or municipality involved. Residents should have the opportunity, through a referendum, to direct the county board or municipality to approve or disapprove any mega hog operation.

Oversight is also important. Neighboring states, like Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, put their environmental agencies in charge of overseeing hog factories. EPA and not Ag has the technical expertise to regulate mega hog operations in Illinois, too. Ag is a cheerleader for hog factories. The Illinois legislature should relieve Ag of its oversight responsibilities and give those responsibilites to EPA.

Let the people who made the mess be the people who clean it up. We learned that in kindergarten. When a mega hog facility closes down, the owners should be required to empty the lagoon and restore the site to its natural state. A real weakness of the 19 96 law is a clause which gives Ag the opportunity to foregive closure rules if the lagoon is used for an "alternative purpose." To some, an abandoned lagoon might conjure up images of a sun-filled beach in the South Pacific. But no one at Ag has yet been able to suggest a realistic "alternative purpose" for a ten acre lagoon full of hog feces and urine.

Liability for environmental damage should fall back on the corporations taking profit out of hog factories. South Dakota has the right idea. A bill introduced there holds corporations owning hogs raised on a contract basis responsible for pollution to th e waters of the state. Humbolt County in Iowa goes one step further. A new ordinance there holds landowners who allow others to spread livestock waste on their fields liable for how the waste is applied if any environmental damage occurs.

A related concern is the cost of clean up to county taxpayers if a limited liability hog factory goes bankrupt and is abandoned. Iowa created a manure storage indemnity fund as a separate fund in the state treasury to cover this possibility. Putnam Count y in Missouri requires a cash or surety bond to guarantee proper closure of livestock lagoons. The important thing is to protect county taxpayers from a clean-up bill that could run up to $500,000 or more.

Illinois is way behind neighboring states in the responsible regulation of hog factories. If our politicians continue along this path of least resistance, we will soon be inundated in hog feces and urine. Corporate interests are targetting 20 or more 3,600 sow facilities for central Illinois alone. Each of these facilities, like the one being constructed outside Williamsfield by Jim and Doug Baird, need at least 5 nurseries and up to a dozen hog-finishing confinements to support them.

You do the math. 20 nurseries with 17 satellites each totals upwards of 350 new multi-acre lagoons and hog-related buildings in central Illinois alone.

Other states have recognized the threat to public health and safety raised by concentrating mega hog facilities and are addressing these real concerns. Here in Illinois, it's time to go beyond proposals like the recent one of Rep. Ray LaHood that we spend $1 million to study pig poop odor and get at the real issues raised by mega hog facilities. Let's learn from our neighbors who have experienced the problem and are now tightening their regulations to ensure hog factories operate as responsible, corporate citizens.