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Monday, January 14, 2008

Environment - "Benton County remains knee-deep in CAFO issues" [Updated]

Joe Carlson reports today in the Lafayette Journal & Courier:

EARL PARK -- Plans for a large confined cattle operation near this town have been revived about three years after a legal battle helped bring them to a standstill. * * *

Petitioners Johan Zuurhout and Global Agri Horizon Leasing LLC are requesting a special exception to build a 3,500-head cattle operation in northwest Benton County, according to Jud Barce, attorney for the Benton County Board of Zoning Appeals.

The board could consider the request as soon as Jan. 29, one day before it resumes a hearing on another confined animal feeding operation, also known as CAFOs. Kokomo-based North Fork Farms LLC wants to build a 10,000-head hog farrowing operation and a 6,000-head finishing farm near Boswell.

Many of the objections residents have raised against the confined hog operation are being brought up for the cattle CAFO. * * *

The BZA approved a special exception for a cattle CAFO at the same site in 2004, but the project was slowed by numerous legal challenges, some of which are still under way. * * *

A woman who answered the phone at Zuurhout's house Friday afternoon said Zuurhout did not wish to comment.

Zuurhout recently moved to the United States with his family from the Netherlands. Gerritt Dekker of Global Agri Horizon operated a dairy in Ontario, Canada, before he sought an Indiana Department of Environmental Management permit for a cattle CAFO in Benton County in 2005.

A second story today by Joe Larson explored the "tangled legal situation":
EARL PARK -- Even if the Benton County Board of Zoning Appeals allows a dairy planned near the Benton-Newton county line to move forward, a tangled legal situation dating back to 2004 makes it unclear what other requirements the dairy's backers would have to meet before the CAFO could be built.

In 2004, the Benton County BZA granted a special exception for Global Agri Horizon Dairy LLC, enabling the entity to move forward with plans to build a 4,200-head dairy.

A lawsuit on behalf of residents in the Earl Park and Kentland area led to that decision being overturned, according to Kentland attorney Steven Ryan. Those residents opposed the dairy largely because of drainage concerns centering on the waste the cattle would produce.

"There is a ditch that takes drainage from (this) property and takes it through the heart of Kentland," Ryan said.

But while Special Judge Robert Thacker of White County Circuit Court was considering the lawsuit, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management granted a permit to Global Agri Horizon Dairy LLC, according to Ryan.

That permit, which IDEM granted Aug. 10, 2005, allowed Global Agri Horizon Dairy LLC to build a confined animal feeding operation for 4,200 cows and 1,000 calves on about 160 acres near Benton County roads 900 North and 500 West, about a mile east of U.S. 41.

Kentland and Earl Park residents again objected, this time appealing the permit. As of Friday, the permit is still under appeal at the Office of Environmental Adjudication, according to IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock.

The petitioners are requesting a new special exception from the BZA but seem to intend to build the dairy under the IDEM permit from 2005 that is still under appeal. A request was made Nov. 8, 2007, to transfer the permit from Global Agri Horizon Dairy LLC to Zuurhout Dairy LLC, according to Hartsock.

"The request is to approve the transfer of ownership," Hartsock said. "That request is currently under review."

Even if Zuurhout Dairy obtains a special exception from the BZA and is granted ownership of the permit by IDEM, it's not clear if the entity would have to wait to start construction until the appeal of that permit was resolved.

Mary Davidsen, director and chief environmental law judge of the Office of Environmental Adjudication, said construction using a permit under appeal would be prohibited only if a stay had been issued.

She did not immediately have access to the case to determine if a stay had been issued in this case.

If no stay was issued and Zuurhout Dairy moved forward with construction while the permit was still under appeal, then the dairy could be forced to tear down anything it builds if the appeal led to the permit being revoked.

The safest approach may be to wait for Davidsen to consider the appeal, a step that has been pending for years but that Davidsen hopes to turn her full attention to in the near future.

"An enterprise could go ahead and construct (before then), but it would be at their own risk," Davidsen said.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 14, 2008 07:26 AM
Posted to Environment