Trees and flowers will be planted at a CAFO on County Road E-57 just west of Highway 4 in Franklin Township, according to Eric and Rhonda Chrystal, operators of Greene County Pigs.
At a public hearing Monday on an amended construction permit due to a change in the master matrix for an expansion previously approved, Eric Chrystal said he plans to plant trees next week or the week following, and that Rhonda has already planted flowers there. “We’re trying. We really are,” Rhonda Chrystal said.
The public hearing was required because Chrystal amended his master matrix, taking out a plan to compost carcasses but adding trees. The change put his master matrix at 440 points, the minimum required for approval by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Attendance at the public hearing was sparse and the hearing lasted just 16 minutes. Supervisor Guy Richardson asked questions sent to him via text message by Chris Henning, who farms and lives in Franklin Township. Henning noted that it appeared the second building was already in use in advance of the permit being approved. She was correct on that; county environmental health director Chuck Wenthold clarified that that was allowed by the DNR.
Henning asked how many hog carcasses would fill a dumpster, and how often the dumpster would be emptied. She said dead hogs smell worse than living ones. Eric Chrystal answered only that the number depends on how big the hogs are, and that it would be emptied twice a week, or more often if needed.
Much of the rhetoric at the public hearing Monday is not new.
Board chair read written comments he received from Patti Edwardson of Churdan. Edwardson wrote that the people who have spoken against CAFOs are not uninformed, that they understand the environmental, economic and social damage CAFOs have done. They are not anti-agriculture, but they know it is important for livestock to be owned by the people responsible for their care. “These people may be passionate, emotional and even angry. If that seems ugly at times, it is because their voices are not being heard or not taken seriously,” Edwardson wrote.
She asked the supervisors “to borrow a line from Nancy Reagan and ‘just say no’.”
Nancy Hanaman of rural Rippey said, “I think it needs to be considered very carefully when the points are barely the number needed…. There are some serious environmental issues. It’s definitely not an anti-farmer thing. We all need to breathe the air, drink the water.”
According to supervisor Guy Richardson, the Iowa legislature is starting to realize the master matrix needs to be looked at, and he hopes it happens in the next legislative session. He repeated again that he thinks there should be more local control over CAFOs. “I’m not against confinement operations necessarily. I think if it’s done right, if it’s sited properly, it’s part of farming. It’s part of what we do out here.
“At the same time, I think we, at the local level, are in a position to be able to determine what the impacts of a siting are better than people sitting at the State. …. I don’t think any of us as local supervisors relishes the idea of taking that on politically because it is a hot potato. But I think we have the responsibility and the obligation to do that…. As part of our position, we should be willing to take part of that responsibility,” Richardson said.
