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Sunday, November 25, 2007
Environment - "Randolph County could zone 220,000 acres for CAFOs"
A story in Saturday's Muncie Star-Press, written by Seth Slabaugh, reports:
MUNCIE -- Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) would be allowed in a new intensive agricultural district covering about 220,000 acres of Randolph County if county commissioners adopt an ordinance proposed by the Area Planning Commission.The ILB took a look at this City-Data.com page and learned that Randolph County Indiana has a land area of 453 square miles.The ordinance also would require anyone wanting to move into the new district to buy at least 40 acres on which to site a rural residence.
The commission spent more than two hours defending the proposal this past week at a meeting attended by dozens of opponents living in rural areas.
One of them, Rachel Carpenter, accused the commission of "choosing pigs over people." She also disputed commission chairman Mike Wickersham's portrayal of the proposal as a compromise. That is because CAFO owners support the ordinance while rural residents "don't feel protected" by it, Carpenter said. * * *
"This is backwards," complained rural resident David Johnson, whose farm land has been owned by his family since 1853. "We're finding ourselves in an industrial park," he said. "I want protection from industrial farming."
Instead of designating 75 percent of the county for CAFOs and 25 percent for people, the county should designate 25 percent of the land for CAFOs and 75 percent for people, Johnson said.
"I've never heard of an entire county being an industrial park," he said.
During an Indiana livestock summit this past summer, Ball State urban planning professor Eric Kelly called modern agriculture a light industry that was incompatible with rural residential use. A consultant to Randolph County, Kelly said the county needed an intensive agricultural district and then another district where hobby farms, row crops and rural residences could co-exist.
As a result, Randolph County is proposing the intensive agricultural district and a limited agricultural district.
The planning commission will vote on the proposed ordinance at 7 p.m. on Dec. 20. It will then be forwarded to county commissioners for final action. * * *
The ordinance would provide a buffer of one mile between CAFOs and cities and towns in Randolph County, as well as a buffer of half a mile between CAFOs and residents of unincorporated communities, subdivsions and heavily populated highways. That means more than 18,000 of Randolph County's population of 26,581 people would live no closer to a CAFO than half a mile or a mile.
The ordinance would allow CAFOs within 750 feet of the thousands of other rural residents of Randolph County.
Wickersham, the commission chairman, said the draft ordinance provided more protection than the county's existing zoning law, which permits CAFOs wtihin 300 feet of a residence anywhere in the county, which contains 289,813 acres.
The new ordinance also would require CAFO operators to inject, rather than spray, manure onto farm fields.
As there are 640 acres in a square mile, there are 289,920 acres in Randolph County. The proposed new "intensive agricultural district " would thus occupy 75.88 % of the county.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 25, 2007 11:58 AM
Posted to Environment