~by Denise O’Brien Van, special to GreeneCountyNewsOnline
The Greene County board of supervisors approved an application for a second building on a swine CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) south of Jefferson at its March 28 meeting.
That will put 2,499 more pigs on the confinement, which is owned by Eric Chrystal of Greene County Pigs LLC. The facility scored 450 on the Iowa DNR (Department of Natural Resources) matrix, a scoring system used to evaluate proposals for new and expanded CAFOs.
Supervisor chairman John Muir of Rippey read a letter from Esther Monthei, who lives about two miles east of the confinement. “We have four of them (CAFOs) right around us, and the smell is awful,” Monthei wrote. “It’s time to stop these ‘piggy mills.’”
Counties can offer input on the location of CAFOS, but the DNR has the final say and issues permits to build.
Supervisor Guy Richardson of Jefferson reminded his fellow supervisors, “I’ve said this before: We need more local control on this. All we can do is OK the matrix.”
A public hearing on another swine operation expansion, this one southwest of Rippey, is set for the supervisors’ April 4 meeting.
According to Chuck Wenthold, county environmental health and zoning administrator, there are 91 CAFOS in Greene County, 83 of which are swine operations.
In other business, the supervisors listened to ideas presented by Terry Lutz, president of McClure Engineering of Des Moines, on how to begin solving Greene County’s lack of available and affordable housing.
Lutz, who spoke to the Jefferson city council last week (see “Jeff council…hears ways to begin addressing local housing needs,” March 23, 2016, GreeneCountyNewOnline) about the issue, filled the supervisors in on how public-private funding could lure developers to build in rural Iowa.
He urged the supervisors and other public officials to keep an open mind about joining private investors to fund housing. “The State won’t solve your housing crisis,” Lutz said. “It’s up to public officials to work with various entities to lower risk for developers.”
Jefferson and Greene County are in an advantageous position to try such a scheme, he said, because JCorp, a Huxley developer, owns land in the northwest section of the city where it tried–and failed because of lack of financing–to build a 20-unit complex two years ago. “They’re still interested,” Lutz said.
The supervisors also appointed Wenthold as the county’s safety coordinator. He will coordinate the county’s worker safety program.
