Talking Point; Industrial Agriculture

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Good evening, and welcome to a talking point.

This spring, people in Vermillion County learned that an Iowa-based company was planning to build a 3,200-sau hog farm near the town of Rankin. Almost immediately, folks living near the proposed site, organized against it. They were concerned the waste produced could pollute the water in their area. They also were worried about the odor that would result. Now people living in other areas of the state have shared these concerns. In fact, early last month, several hundred people from across Illinois turned out for a rally in Springfield, where they called on lawmakers to impose tougher regulations on large-scale livestock operations. As a result of the protest of that local area there in Rankin, Hartland Pork Enterprises, announced recently it would abandon its plan to build that hog farm near Rankin. But as economic forces move us to every larger, more intensive systems of food production, it seems likely we'll see more conflict of this kind. Tonight we'll be looking at some of the issues involved in these so-called mega livestock

operations, including just how big is big, and who should set the rules? And our guest tonight are Tom Theesfeld, from Citizens for the Protection of Butler Township. That's a group that was organized to oppose the Hartland Pork Operation in Rankin. He makes his living as a district sales manager for Huber Seed Company. But Borof is Deputy Director for the Division of Natural Resource and Ag Industry Regulation with the Illinois Department of Agriculture in Springfield. He's also a farmer, and he raises corn and soybeans. Our third guest is Robert Easter. He heads the Department of Animal Sciences at the U of I. He is also a professor of animal sciences who specializes in swine research. Now as we all talk, you should be thinking about the questions you'd like to ask, and we'll give you a chance to do that a little later on in the program. Thank you all very much. Thank you for being here. We appreciate it. Just to start out, I guess perhaps I shall also mention to the people who are watching that we did invite the folks at Hartland Pork Enterprises to participate in the program and send a representative and they said, well, they were all going over to Indianapolis for

the Pork Expo. They wouldn't be able to be here, so we just want you to know that we did give them the opportunity to be on the program. Well, I want to talk specifically a little bit about what happened in Rankin, and then maybe raise the issue up to the state level and talk there. But I want to ask first, Tom, I think maybe you were one of the first people in your area to discover that this company was planning to locate there. What was your, when you learned that there was this proposal to build this large operation there? What was your reaction? Well, I was pretty upset. I found out about it quite by accident. I was out in the yard and doing some chores one evening in January and saw both of those or go by, and I found it odd that anybody would be hauling a bulldozer around when a ground was frozen and watched to see where it went. I thought maybe the guy was lost and went down and found out that he was unloading at it and asked what was going to happen and the gentleman said, well, they were planning to build a hog farm there, and at that point in time I didn't know much, I talked to some of my neighbors and asked around and nobody knew anything about it and I did a little detective

work and found out who the owner of the property was and found out that they were negotiating with Heartland Pork and the size of the facility, and that was the first time anybody in the community knew anything about it. Well, when you realized how big this would be, we were talking about a lot of animals there, what was your thought? When you thought about what that would be like, what did you think the potential problems might be? Well, my first concerns were one with odor, two with not only groundwater as contamination but potential lowering of groundwater, the facility was slated to be within between a half and a quarter mile from my home, and livestock operations of that size usually used quite a bit of water. Another concern I had was contamination from leaky to the manure lagoon, spillage, increased traffic on a gravel road in the country. Unfortunately, where that's not real good place to build roads is real tough, the ground tends to retain a lot of moisture and stuff to keep roads there, and with the increased

traffic, I was sure we were going to have a real problem. Let me turn it to Cheborov. The operations like this are regulated by regulations of the state of Illinois, and the company that was planning on building this operation said they certainly intended to abide by all of the regulations. When you listen, and I know that you're familiar with the concerns of the people who live there. Have you heard about their fears, do you think that they're justified, or do you think that the rules that apply to facilities like this one that was proposed would have addressed all of their concerns? No, certainly their concerns are very justified, you know, not only in this case of rank and but around the state, and Illinois is not unique in this. Other states as well where operations are being proposed like this, a lot of times the neighbors have concerns about them, and that's why the general assembly last year through a very large, deliberative process put together the livestock management facilities act, and put together an act that would develop regulations which would set criteria

for the construction of livestock legumes, waste legumes like Tom had mentioned, also looks at things like setbacks, or by the distance from a neighboring home that is regulated in that type of thing, and also the act includes some provisions is to make sure the management is being carried out properly in a good system around an operation like this. So certainly concerns are valid, and the act and the legislature tried to address those last year, and then the pollution control board as they went on further to develop the rules which now are a part of that act as a whole. Was that knowing that didn't come for two folks at all? No, it didn't. After I dug into the situation a little bit, I found out a lot of things, and one of the first things that started happening when a press picked up on our story was my phone started to ring, and most of the calls I got, and all the calls I had were from people who had been involved with mega-sized operations. None of them suggested that we invite this facility to our community, as a matter of fact,

most of all the comments I heard were negative, and in my travels I've been involved with livestock production, and they have a pretty good idea of what site sounds traffic from a normal livestock facility are, and have even been around and been near some mega-facilities, and I really couldn't see any positive feedback from this particular facility on this particular site in our community. Let me turn to a Professor Easter because, and ask you, why it is now this seems to be such an issue, and has within the last months, and years has been an issue, because it's not just an issue in Vermillion County, it's been an issue other places around the state, and it's not like people just started raising hogs last fall. Why now is this has this become so intense? It's fair to say that if we take a historical perspective that this is one of those turning points in the way pigs are raised, the last turning point took place back in the 1970s,

and it occurred on farms all across the Midwest, is usually families, concentrated their livestock production, particularly their swine production, and units that by today's standards would be considered small. Then during the 1980s we saw emerge on the east coast, particularly in North Carolina, very large operations, and it's when those type of operations begin to, or that model begin to evolve in the Midwest that we saw this issue begin to become more focused in concern. Well, do economics dictate that to be profitable and to be successful, you've got to be that size? I'm not convinced that that's the case, I believe there's good opportunity for small farmers to engage in the industry in ways that will allow them to be competitive. How does the state Department of Agriculture look at operations like this? Do you feel that it's the department's place to say either it's good, or it's not, or

merely it's just a matter of the department's being in a position to make sure that people follow the rules that are there, and then that's that. The Department of Agriculture has two pretty clearly defined roles. One is to be a regulatory agency, and certainly we regulate this industry as we're talking about tonight that there are other parts of the agricultural industry that we regulate as well, things such as the feed, the seed grain, fertilizer industry, warehouses. We also are in charge of regulating the pesticide industry and the way that farmers and ag businesses handle ag chemicals in the state. So we've got this regulatory role. We also have a clearly defined role as being an advocate for agriculture, and I'd agree with Professor Easter in that our department feels that there's a place for livestock, and it's a ball size, and a state of Illinois, that certainly there's a place for what we might term a smaller, all that's difficult to define small and large and that type of thing.

But there is a place for good, well-managed livestock facilities across the state. So as a regulator, what we're concerned with is making sure that the playing field is level and that the laws which are passed down to us and given to us by the General Assembly are being adhered to. One of the questions that comes up in this whole discussion is, how big is big? We could turn a toss around these terms like mega hog farms. What exactly does that mean? Where do you draw the line between a small and a medium and a large producer? That's difficult to say today because historically a small farm was something with say 150,000 or 150 reproducing females, and if one scales that up, that's two or 3,000 pigs produced per year. A medium farm was maybe twice that size or three times that size by definition that most people used. And a large farm was perhaps 1,000 cells or slightly over that. We've not historically had a large number of those large farms in the state. Today it's difficult because in other parts of the world there's discussion of units

that produce millions of pigs, 4 or 5 million per year. That's very large. I don't think we'll see that here. You folks were successful from your perspective successful because the company announced just recently that they were going to withdraw their application and they would not be locating in your area. Why do you think that was? Well, in part in their press release they stated that it was public pressure. They also at the outset wanted to, one of the things they dwelt on was the fact that they were a good neighbor and they said one of the reasons behind them leaving was the fact that they wanted to continue to be a good neighbor. And this was a point that as a group that we did use as a pressure point and we felt that they weren't being a good neighbor to us. They didn't come and talk to any of the immediate neighbors.

As far as my understanding they didn't approach the county board. They did not approach township. They didn't approach any local governing bodies or anything like that. So we felt that was part of them being a good neighbor by going ahead and leaving. There must have been some folks in the area that thought it would be the economic benefit to a million county to have this plant there. It would bring income in, it would employ people. How do you think about the fact that as a result of your opposition that possibly some economic opportunity for your area had been lost? I'll take the abuse. In my travels and as our travels as a group I think we only encountered one resident in the very beginning that really felt that this was going to have a positive impact on our area and at the specific sighting. One thing that I think people fail to understand is we have nothing against hog farmers. We have nothing against hog farms and if poor cast to be produced and produced in the facility of that size, so be it.

But we feel that they need more stringent regulations on where they're located and how they're located. What do you think about the regulations that exist for these kind of operations? Tom says he thinks that they should be more stringent. I'm not sure if chat thinks that there should be more or less or that they're just finding the way that they are. I'll ask a bad question in a minute, but tell me what you think, a sort of impartial person in this. I'm not sure that's fair. We're not in the business of evaluating regulations, but I think we are involved in trying to quantify effects and trying to understand what's decided at large once and how we can go about measuring what they want in terms of the environmental quality issues. So our role would be in responding and interpreting the regulations and certainly working with pork producers to educate them as well and the regulations. It would be your feeling, it would be correct to say that the technology exists to design

and run a facility to raise significant numbers of animals that would be compatible with people living near it and you could have a place that people would feel okay living near. I think that there are places around the world that would verify that animal agriculture by its nature does produce waste and it does produce odor, even our family can't produce its waste and odor, but at a level of acceptability and one that is certainly compatible with lifestyle in the area. I don't mean to be unfair or put you in a bad position, but maybe I should just ask that question. Do you think, let me ask you a flat out, do you think the regulations that have been written, that have been written by the state and have been carried further by the pollution control board, are they good enough or would you think that they should go farther? I'll explain my answer, but yes, I think that they are. I think that the regulations are the way they're written based on today's understanding

the problem today's technology and taking into consideration the makeup of the state of Illinois. I think that they're adequate and I'd like to see them have an opportunity to work. The regulations came about as a part of the legislative process, then from that point in time they were put together by a multi-agency committee and then passed on to the Illinois Pollution Control Board, which regularly deals with this type of an issue. They held five hearings around the state. They brought in a lot of testimony from pros and cons on the whole situation and then finally passed down the set of regulations that now were given the opportunity to administer. One of the things I think that we have to remain, that we understand about regulations is that the agricultural economy is unique from other facets of the economy because of the marketplace in which they sell their product, farmers or price takers and not price makers. And so that when there's any cost of regulation regardless of the size of the operation, the farmer himself has to bear the full cost of that regulation. He has no opportunity to pass that cost on.

So when I look at the regulations that have been passed here in the state of Illinois and what we're working under, they're really not unique. They're pretty typical I think compared to the way other states have chosen to address this issue because certainly this whole debate, pro-ancon of the livestock and the mega-farm and that type of thing is taking place in other states as well. And Illinois finds ourselves either at the middle and in some cases a little more restrictive in other states toward that degree. So from my perspective, I would like to see the regulations have an opportunity to work for a while to see whether or not they do in fact do what they were intended to do. Let me take a moment here to tell people who are watching that in a moment or two, we'll begin taking your calls and if you do have questions for the panel, the number to call is 333-3495, if you live outside the 217 code area you may call collect and as soon as we get some folks lined up, we'll go right to the phones. Tom, is your concern and the other folks concern about this operation that had been proposed there for rank and was it the fact that simply it was, you thought that the place where

they were talking about putting it was not right for environmental or whatever reasons or I mean did it also have to come down to the fact that it just, you know, it happened to be like you said it was a mile and a quarter or something from where you lived and it was an issue that the people who were going to be very close to it just didn't want to be close to it. Well, yes, all of the above. I feel that if the company itself would have made an attempt to be a little more user-friendly, maybe we would have been a little more receptive and to yes, I feel that that was a poor choice in sites. There are places in the state of Illinois, the side of the facility of that size, but not that close to neighbors, not within two miles of southwest, which is a prevailing wind of a small town. There was just a lot of real poor choices. It was very close to a watershed that flowed into the metal fork river, which is a federally protected wild and scenic river and Mr. Borroff makes a couple of real good points about

the cost of regulation and I think that part of the concerns that citizens have is more of the concerns about the mega farms rather than a small independent producers because those people have been in a livestock industry a long time, have paid their dues and are well-managed operations. A lot of the mega players, I'm not saying, are not well-managed, but are relatively new on the scene and have a fairly short track history. That's something I think to be considered. As far as the cost of regulation, I agree with what he said, but again, I think most people are concerned more about the larger facilities and the smaller facilities. The facility that was proposed in our area was a $3 million facility. Well, maybe if they had come forward and said, hey, we'll spend a $50 or $100,000 to make this facility acceptable to the public, maybe they'd be building a building there, you don't know.

What makes the decision, how is the decision made simply about whether or not a particular site is appropriate? The company says, we would like to build the facility. This is where we want to build it. Who characterizes the site and says, yes or no? The livestock management facilities act and then the rules that were put together by the Illinois pollution control board are very specific in terms of that site selection. The first criteria that has to be met is one of the setback distances. That's established within the act itself whereby it establishes a zone that has to exist around a livestock facility, both for residential and then a larger zone for populated areas. If, in fact, that doesn't meet that criteria, then that site is not applicable for that building. If the setback zones are able to be met, then the regulations go through a list of different criteria that have to be met in terms of looking at the, through the use of soil borings, looking at the deaths to aquifer to see what potentially might be to a contamination

ground water, taking effect some of the topographic kind of things criteria. And then once that's been established, then looking at the actual construction of the facility and the way the act is written, the actual lagoon itself. There are also some other agencies, the Department of Natural Resources, has to look at a threatened and endangered species of evaluation to see if any of those types of aspects might be taken into effect. So, the process is such that a site would work through all those different criteria and if it's met those criteria, then the site would be approved. And in this particular case, that process had not taken place yet. So it's, and correct me for a moment, so it's possible at some point the application would not have been approved. And the process, as it stands with Heartland Pork, is they had made a registration or an application to our department for that site. And they had supplied us with the information about it and gone through some of that investigative criteria type of explanation I gave you.

We were in the process of working through that and had some additional questions to the company that we had not yet received an answer back on. And at that point in time, they had chosen withdraw. So the application itself for Heartland was never really completed through the department and we had started that process with them. I wonder if you think, you know, based on the reaction that these folks had, if now companies who are interested in trying to build operations like this are going to have difficult increasingly difficult time and may face opposition right from the time that they announced and might not even get to get to that point. Well, I think that has been the case, not only in this one, but in some others around the state as well, where they have had some community resistance. We get several callers. One, we go ahead and start talking with people who are watching. We'll start out with someone in normal and it's line number one. Hello. Hi. I don't believe that the Illinois regulations are strict enough.

First of all, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, other states have really clamped down hard and now all of these producers, these large farms, they're moving into our state. We're currently fighting one that is going in and murder about six miles east of my house and normal and they're falling under absolutely no regulations or permits needed because they're putting their waste into a cement pond as opposed to a lagoon. And there's, it's going to be older, it's going to be full of odors, it could be full of smell and in fact, and we've got to have more regulations. We have no local control. We need that. Do you, let me ask, maybe I can ask Professor Eastern, I don't know if you answered this question. I mean, do you think that it is true that as the caller asserts that the regulations in the state of Illinois are less stringent than in other states and that is why corporations based in other states might indeed be looking at Illinois as a place to move? I think we have an environment where states are changing their rules almost daily.

I think it's fair to say that a number of operations have looked further to the west rather than looking to the Midwest as production sites, particularly the states like Utah, for example. And so I'm not sure that there's been a major rush to build our units in Illinois as a result of that. The caller does also make another point and that that's certainly when I wanted to get to and that is community's right to say they wouldn't want a facility like this. And I believe that people in Fermilian County and perhaps other counties think that on the local level, at least on the local level of the county board say, they ought to be able to say we don't want this facility. And in fact, I believe that people in Fermilian County actually went to the legislature and asked for legislation to that effect to say we want you to draft a law that says the county board could say no. This was not not successful. No it wasn't.

There was a house, HR 110 was a house resolution on the floor to have a group of individuals examined closer, the rank and site, there was also HR 98 that dealt with a site over in western Illinois, but no it was it was not successful. But I do believe that there should be some local input as far as citing, as far as even a community type, a public hearing so that the residents, the area should be able to have a voice in this. After all, they're going to have to deal with it and if there is an odor, it's going to play a real big role in property values in the area. What do you think about that? I think about the idea of local elected officials being able to say that they would not want such a facility. Something I'd like to just comment to clarify that the caller had mentioned and I guess I'm assuming that the operation that I'm familiar with that's being built near Myrna is the only one. Maybe there's a second one that she knows about that I'm not familiar with, but the one

that I'm familiar with that's being built there is actually, it's not really typified by an out-of-state corporation moving in, but rather it's a local family who are expanding their operations. So it's not like it's an out-of-state corporation or company coming in, if it's the same one that I'm thinking about. I think when she typifies that the regulations don't apply that operation, she's mistaken there as well. If it's the one that I'm familiar with, it's true that they're not building a lagoon which the law addresses specifically. So those criteria wouldn't necessarily apply, but they do have to comply with the same setback regulations and then if they have a certain size of operation, they have to make sure that there's a certified livestock manager that's properly trained and tested for competency that manages the waste on the facility and then also they do have to, if there are certain size, are going to have to develop and maintain a waste management plan to make sure that the livestock waste, regardless of where it's stored, whether in a pit or in a lagoon, is applied at agronomic rates. So if that's the operation that I'm familiar with, I think that the caller may be misinterpreted

a little bit of what's going on there. Professor Eastman made a comment that I'd like to maybe expand upon, he said that operations and livestock production may be moving west. There's also concern that it may be moving south and way south in terms of central and south America so that the potential makes is to where actually other countries are going to be competing for the operations that we have typically had in this country. What does that mean to the state of Illinois? How important is livestock to the Illinois economy? Typically we produce about $2 billion worth of livestock here in the state. That's about 25% of the $8 billion of gross agricultural commodities that are produced in Illinois so that it's a big chunk of gross farm income certainly. And then beyond that it also adds a lot to the price of corn soybeans that are raised here in Illinois but fed through our livestock and increases the value of those crops as well.

So I think it's something that would be hard pressed to argue that we don't need that industry and that we would be hard pressed, we had to replace it. I don't know, just real quick on when you get on some other callers just to touch on that point of local control again and I don't know if that's something that you would want to say one way or another about but what do you think? Did local communities have the ability to say if they don't want such a facility that they don't? I understand the concerns and that is one of the big issues that I think the general assembly has yet to determine and I know that that's going to continue to be an issue of discussion in the bait and Springfield. Some states in Minnesota as an example has a local zoning and control even as far down as the township level and there are some that think that has been successful but there are others that say it makes a very confusing picture for the livestock industry in a state because the livestock producer finds themselves facing a patchwork of regulations from one township, one county to the next and so that there are some, a lot of people that would suggest that what's more makes better sense is to have one consistent set of rules for the state as a whole to follow.

Well, let me, we have another of folks holding so why don't we go on and we'll talk with someone in rank it. That's line number three. Hello. Hello? Yes. My question for the gentleman from the Illinois Department of Port. I was wondering how can you as a proponent of the industrial hog operations regulate this industry without any bias. For example, Director Becky Doyle-Husman has a large hog operation and legal advisor Julie King is the daughter of the President-elect of the National Port Producers Council. Well, I want to make sure that people know that you're obviously here as a representative of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. You're not here speaking for the Port Producers or for people in that industry. If I was to be typified at speaking for Port Producers, it would really be Port Producers of any size. I mean, as I said earlier, we're here to advocate for the livestock industry as a very vital part of the Illinois economy as a whole and it is the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Right.

They're being a flippant when they say, yes, our director has a background coming from a family farm that's involved in pork production and her family today still raises pork. I'm a farmer myself, I used to raise livestock. I don't anymore because of my involvement in the department and the time that it takes. But typically, because of the work that we do in the department, we attract a lot of people that come from agricultural and farm backgrounds. I really believe strongly that most of the people that we serve the farmers of the state would rather it be that way, the people that understand their industry or the ones that are working there in the department that serves them as well. We're very, very conscious of the contentions that the collar makes about conflict of interest and that type of thing. They mentioned Ms. King, who's a recent addition to our department. She's an Illinois native. Her family has been here in the state for many, many years producing livestock on a family farm and the collar is right. Her father is the president this year, the National Port Producers Council.

She came to the department, very well qualified. She's very well trained and she's a great asset. But because of the concern that people have about a conflict of interest, that type of thing, Ms. King has no connection with making any day-to-day decisions or policy decisions with this program. There are certainly many, many other things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis that are not directly involved and she deals with those items as well. In any case though, when there's any hint of a conflict of interest or that type of thing, because of the oversight that we have from both the General Assembly and the audit commissions and that type of thing, we're very conscious of that. I think there are track records that would speak for itself because many people have accused us of being the fox guarding the chicken house. They've made that accusation for years in terms of egg pesticides and that type of thing. I think we have a very admirable track record and very credible and we're proud to stand on that. Let's go on to another collar. We'll go to Blue Mountain. Number two, hello?

Yes. I have a question to start with, are the people that want to build this hog operation of corporation? Are they a corporation? Are they a corporation? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. I think if we would go back before the Civil War and study the Constitution and Bell rights, you'll find out that individuals have rights and corporations only have privileges and to me, all the township board just got to say, we don't want to if you're a corporation and that's even a family farm corporation and that it seems like we want to do everything except what the Constitution, the rights dictates and all hang up and let you focus on that. Well, let me ask Professor Easter, I mean, you can hazard it depending if you want. I mean, we did talk about this issue, you know, should local communities have the authority say should the county board have the authority to say no? But, you know, I suppose they do at least have the authority to go on the record to say no,

which the rebellion county board did and if the county board members do that, if citizens and the county do that, if the majority folks say we don't want you here, it seems like probably a corporation would say, well, I guess that means they don't want us here and go someplace else. I mean, is that enough, do you think, to give citizens the power to have their say? I think most of us usually react to signals that we're not wanted in some way. It's interesting too because one of the issues is really rights of private owners to do things with their property versus the rights of the community of ours and there are different ways that that gets worked out and one of the ways that it does get worked out is by a neighbor saying we don't like what you're doing. Well that's, I mean, in essence, what you did, I mean, so do you, even though you would have liked to see the county board have the authority to say, you can't locate this operation here, you did through citizen action communicate to the company that you'd rather

not have them operate there and so that was successful. I mean, is that, is that enough or would you really like to know? No, it's not. I'd like to see more local control and increase in setback distances and what if they wouldn't have taken no for an answer is another problem that we have. You know, there could be companies that would want to come in the state and not say no for an answer and I am not for sure, chat, maybe you can help me here. Is there an appeals process for the, say, somebody builds a facility and the neighbors want to appeal to the regulations on the livestock waste management act? Is there a set of appeals process to do that act? Yeah, as I understand at the act, any act like what we administer also has those appeals rights just through the normal course of Illinois law where they could appeal that decision and ultimately they could take that appeal to the courts as well.

Okay, we've got a lot of callers, let's go to Shelby County, line number five. Hello? Hi. I wanted to say Bravo to Rankin, within the last year, about 10 homes within a mild radius of a farmer who was setting up a very small operation with 28 producing pods. That's real concern about our groundwater and wells and we took water samples to protect ourselves on the before side and were advised by the Illinois Department of Water Resources to do so. Indeed, we found out later that the hog farm did materialized because hog got sick and died. We had to be destroyed. We don't, not sure where they've ended up, but so far none of our wells have been contaminated but during that process, I was sent by, and I'm not sure whether it was the water resources groundwater or management or who it was, sent me a copy of the abbreviated regulations that didn't have all the little set notes and numbers of the pages where I had to go

through Illinois law to find out what all of them meant, but in reading the pages that I was, that the regulations seemed to be off that in another place. In other words, a farmer could get away with one thing by following another section of the law, complying with it rather than complying with the other, and we're talking about 28 producing animals within a football field, playing four homes, sick producing wells that supply water to the homes, and a well-being drilled over 200 feet deep that would be a good 150 feet deeper than most of the wells in the area to supply water to this hog farm, and thankfully the hog farm didn't materialize for the residents here, but we were all very concerned, and because of the size of the farm in the number of animals,

we were not required by any law to have an environmental impact done on the neighboring area, and we were basically, after I read through the various sections and followed through with the material that I received, we were not protected in any way, had that hog farm materialized and the groundwater been fouled, and our wells been destroyed, plus the environment, but we live in being very odoriferous, we would have not had any recourse in the matter because of the size of the farm, and I feel like the legislature and the lawmakers need to take another hard look at this sort of thing, because groundwater and Illinois is under very stringent rules by the EPA, but no one in the area seems to be in controller management or looking out for those things, even a farmer can file his fields and drain groundwater

sufficiently to dry up wells within the area, and there's no recourse for the homeowners who live in the real community. Let me ask you about that, just at what point do regulations kick in, is there a certain level at which there are no regulations or the regulations are different, say, if in a situation where you have a relatively small number of animals? Good point, and the couple of times, I heard her say 28 producing females, which would be, I think, relatively small, in most people's book, but regardless of that, that was the concern that she had. There are two acts I would talk about here, one would be the livestock act, which we've been discussing. The provisions of it begin at 50 animal units, which is approximately 120 hogs based on the size that she may be talking about, so the provisions of this act would not have applied for the 28 that she noted.

However, people need to recognize, I think, that even prior to this act, in the State we had the Environmental Protection Act, which applied to all livestock operations. That one is administered by the Illinois EPA, and if in fact there's some type of a nuisance or a pollution event that would occur from any size operation, they had the authority to come in and take remedial and compliance enforcement action against them, and typically they do. They have a history of taking enforcement action against any size operation. If in fact, there's a verified nuisance or a pollution event that's occurred from it. So it's not the case that there's no mechanism for recourse, but it just might be a different agency rather than... Yes, that's right. The only thing that wouldn't apply would just be the setbacks, and an operation of that small could have been placed even closer to the home. I think Professor Easter and Chet will also agree with me on this, too. A lot of it on any unit, especially something that's small, management, the individual manager comes into play a lot on that.

Well, that's ultimately a major factor in building design and design of the facilities is certainly critical, but the way that they're managed is also important. And that's one of the reasons that the Act requires certification and training of managers so that they're certainly aware of techniques and management approaches that will minimize the offense. That's a really very good point, because I've mentioned earlier that many of the acts and legislative scenarios across the country are very similar. Although our state is rather unique, and that we do have this certified livestock manager training and testing requirement, whereby an operator has to make sure that they're competent. They can prove that competency. This past winter, we worked in conjunction with the Cooperative Extension Service to provide training at eight different sites around the state. We had over 2,000 livestock producers attend, and just almost 1,000 of those then took the competency test they had to pass in order to comply with the Act itself. And at what level that is, when you have a certain number of animals, then you were required

to do that. What is that number? Okay. It's a little confusing, because we have to get familiar with the terminology. In an attempt to try to standardize, I guess, from one species to the other, the Act, and other acts as well use animal units. In the case of Illinois, at 300 animal units, an operator has to become a certified livestock manager. They can do that either through testing or excuse me, or attendance at one of these classes, in this case, put on by the Extension Service. Over 1,000 animal units, then they also have to attend as well as test to prove that competency. And to me, again, it's very confusing. That 300 animal units does not mean 300 animals. No, it does not. So, but how many animals is that? Okay. Does it vary depending on what's your species on the species and weight? It's based on a beef animal, which would be a one animal unit, so that 300 had a beef cattle confined in an area would be 300 animal units. In the case of, like, breeding females for swine, it's a 0.4 conversion.

And so that if my math is right for 300 animal units, you'd have to have about 1,200, 1,100 hogs of that size. So you get pretty good size, but when you're talking about that many animals, then that is when you would be required to have this certification. Yeah. In the case of dairy, the conversion factor there is actually larger. It's a 1.4 conversion factor. All of that's specified in the act. Let's go again to another called a Christian County this time. That's line number four. Hello. Hello. Yes. I'm curious about two items that I'd like anyone to answer. Who is ensuring these large operations of companies within the state of Illinois or companies from outside the state and do we know of any specific companies that are backing them with insurance? And who's responsible when the power goes off in the summer? Thank you. Can what either of you answered those questions? Well, I'm not sure what the color meant exactly in terms of what type of insurance,

whether it would be liability or property insurance, whatever the case might be. Like any other business, typically they have some type of insurance to cover those. As far as when the electricity goes off in the summertime, that would certainly be the responsibility of the owner of the buildings. I'm not really quite sure where she was going to go. I might just comment on that. Ventilation is really important in the hot summer, obviously, because of heat stress concerns. And most units, in fact, all units of any size, have a power backup power generator that in most cases switches on automatically during a power failure. I think maybe the other concern that the color was interested in was as far as liability as far as a lagoon failure environmental damage. I think that's where the color was going. And are companies required to have that kind of insurance? As far as the insurance that would ensure against a liability for a pollution event and that type of thing, it's very difficult to get that kind of insurance.

Although through the Environmental Protection Act, the State EPA has the authority to go in actually fine, and they have done that in the past. There's been operations that have any kind of environmental impact. One of the things that the act specifies is that an operation has to have financial security on lagoons, so that if an operation would leave town, so to speak, and leave a lagoon to be cleaned up, that there would be some provision made for that. The pollution control board has started another docket of hearings, which will take place this summer to determine the level of that financial security that may be required and how an operation would go about acquiring that level. Okay, let's go on again to Leroy. Line 6. Hello. Yes, I have a question for Mr. Boroff. On citing you, in further earlier, that there was, in fact, a citing permit process, isn't it fair to say that the Department of Ag does nothing but register. There's no citing permitting at all, that as Representative Black said recently, if you can build one of your sites in rank and you can build them any more in the state of Illinois.

Because we don't have citing criteria, we do not have any citing permit this issued by the Department of Ag. So the site over rank and if, in fact, was determined that it wasn't an environmentally sensitive area, Department of Ag could not have told Heartland, you can't build there because, in our opinion, and from all the data, it's not as an environmentally sensitive area, so therefore you can't build there. So there is no citing permit's issue. They only register with the Department of Ag, is that not correct? I think it's a matter of terminology, really. In some states, their regulations call for a permit. At our, in our state, the Act calls for a registration and certification process. As I was outlining to you earlier, it would be the registration process, we're by an example of Heartland. We're going through this application process where they were looking at the different criteria to actually locate there.

At some point in time, though, the second step of that, the certification is that the operation has to be certified. The location has to be certified before they can actually begin business at that site. So it's a difference in terminology, typically a permit would take place ahead of construction. The way our rules are written with the registration certification, the operation could conceivably be built, but it has to be able to meet those site criteria before it can be certified and placed in operation. It's, I don't know if we're ending up repeating ourselves, but who is it that's responsible for determining that the criteria for the site are met, that it does have the right setbacks, that there's no hazardous environmental possibilities, who actually goes out there and eyeballs the place and makes the decision. That is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture. And it would be the department that if a proposed construction didn't meet those requirements, it would be the Department of Agriculture that would say, no, your application is denied.

That's right. That's right. And that, in some other provisions in the Act, we have the ability to go out and either levy fines and then take enforcement action all the way up to issuing a cease and desist order, which would say that the operation couldn't, couldn't operate there. Has that ever been done cease and desist order or has a permit ever been denied? As far as issuing a cease and desist order, the rules in the Act are new enough that no, we haven't had an opportunity for one to go that far and hopefully of course you never would, but no, it's relatively new enough that that hasn't been the case. Once the Act and the rules have gone into effect, we have had about, I think, 20 applications for livestock with wounds that we have begun the process, four of which have been actually completed and certified. The other, I believe, have 16 or so are in the process, somewhere along that pipeline that I described earlier. And the rules that are in effect now, when did they, because this is a real, as you say, it's a relatively recent lead.

That's right. It's a strong loss. The idea of the timeframe is that the Act was passed and signed in the law on May 21st of 1996, a year ago. Some provisions of the Act went into effect immediately, but others had to be, there had to be rules promulgated through this Illinois Pollution Control Board process, which I had outlined earlier. The deadline for our advisory committee to get those rules to the board was November 21st, 1996. The committee met that deadline, and then from that point in time, the Pollution Control Board then went on with their public hearing process and was able to meet their deadline of having those rules finally completed, adopted, and filed with the Secretary of State honored before May 21st of this year. And to confuse the issue even more along that process last fall, we developed some emergency rules in response to the concern in the country that the state did not have a regulatory process in place. And so we had some emergency rules that were in effect and that covered the industry until such time as just recently the permit rules were adopted.

I think a point that ought to be made though, and I think Professor Easter will agree with this, is that these facilities can spring up virtually overnight when Heartland came to us. They were talking about being up and running in 60 days after starting construction, which sometimes the wheels of government turn much slower than that. Well, is that a possibility that a facility could sort of get going? So as it would be a fatal complaint, we've never constructed one that quickly on this camp, as I'm quite sure. Now, it would be difficult to do, I would think, particularly if the rules process engaging in the evaluation certification began at the first day of those 60 days, getting that accomplished in the facility actually constructed would take some time. And also, Tommy, the comment that sometimes the wheels of government move very slowly. In some cases, they do, but not in our department, not with this particular act, because the act is very specific on the time frames of which we have to respond to an applicant. And so we have to meet those deadlines to get the response back to the applicant.

So it moves pretty quickly. Let's go on to someone else here. Our COLA, next call, line five. Hello. Hello. I wanted to comment on the local government issue, the pork industry, on the one hand fights against national regulations saying that bureaucrats in wishing can don't know better. Local government is better. So they play off states against each other to minimize environmental regulation to keep the playing field from being level across the nation. And then on the other hand, they oppose real local regulation, which would be on the county and township level where politicians are relatively immune from the type of lobbying that goes on in Springfield, Washington, because they don't earn a salary. They don't have campaign funds. Isn't that hypocritical to, on the one hand, say, local units of government no better than Washington? But on the other hand, oppose a real effort to let local citizens control these things. It seems to me, my question is really addressed to Mr. Borra, who's representing Springfield

there in the middle. It seems to me like this is the case where a level playing field that does not play Missouri, Iowa, Illinois off against each other, against North Carolina, which is what the industry is doing. Very, very clearly. I've had some experiences as well. Well, coming. I'm not sure which part of his comments to respond to, actually, I guess, as I think I mentioned earlier with this whole thing in terms of local control and local input, it's a very difficult situation to deal with. As I mentioned, there are some states where they've tried that and somewhere they've chosen not to. And one that the General Assembly has taken up, and I think we'll take up in the future, too, in terms of how to resolve this. I know as we've gone through this deliberative process the last year or so, it's yet for someone to come up with a scenario that shows really how that would work. And I think that'll be a key time when we can get maybe a model of that type of legislation on the table that someone can discuss and really see the merits of it, pros and cons.

I think there's some legislation coming out of Minnesota where they've been regulated on a township level, and I think it's a matter of, I can understand the need for some standardization. I think that you couldn't regulate differently from township to township, but maybe on a county level, regulate it, and have a fair playing field for everybody. And I think that we're going to need to look at some of those laws coming out of Minnesota and take a closer look at that, and maybe look at some local fighting criteria. And we'll see if we can squeeze, we'll lose one more call and we have someone in towanda. Line number three. Hello? Yes. First, I want to congratulate the three, these thoughts, but they're victory in rankin' and the community supports that he received, and my next concern is with the fighting of the facility here in normal or in Myrna, Illinois, and Mr. Warnoff said that he was familiar with this, but it's he familiar with the Lookling County Greenway Plan, where they talk about the biological stream classification stating that the water quality is currently

rated as poor and that immediate steps should be taken to rectify this situation, and that this particular facility is at a 40-foot incline just 1,000 feet of kill-for-money great. I think that the entire city of Bloomington's water supply could be in jeopardy. Here we're talking about 60,000 people. I feel that the local city officials should have some faith, though, into the fighting of this facility and could have a great impact on this community, not just the area residents, but those who are depending on the water supply of Lake Bloomington. Well, she makes a point, and the point being that we need to be concerned about all the natural resources that these operations might have an impact on, and I think that's kind of typical of where we've been discussing here tonight and looking that we're getting close to the end, but there are really two parts of this whole debate, one from the natural resource issue that we've talked about and the act and the regulations that try to go quite a ways in making sure that the environment is protected, and on the other hand there's

the other issue that we've talked about, and that's the socioeconomic and ownership and structure and that type of thing. Both the new regulations and ones that were on the books already attempt to make sure that there's a balance in that the natural resources are protected. We're just, we're coming down to the point where we probably have less than a minute. My assertion at the beginning, just coming up from what I have read, this idea that there may be more of this kind of tension between farmers and producers and their neighbors in future, do you think that that's true? Will there be? I think there probably will be, but I would hope that as we move ahead that we can resolve those issues because Tom brought up the point early on that there is an opportunity to produce pork and the demand for pork is growing nationally and globally, and it's a real opportunity for Illinois agriculture and we need to solve the problem. We're unfortunately, we're going to have to stop there because we're at the end of the time, thanks to everybody who called. We also would like to thank the guests that we have with us this evening. We are thanks to Tom Theesfeld from Citizens for the Protection of Butler Township, Chet

Boroff, his Deputy Director for the Division of Natural Resource and Ag Industry Regulation with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, also Bob Easter. He's head of the Department of Animal Sciences at the U of I. Our program returns in two weeks, June 19th, so we hope you can join us then. In the meantime, if you can, tune in for our radio talk show Focus 580. Tomorrow morning at 10 we'll be talking with Marilyn Kay from the reading group in Urbana about dyslexia at 11 the guest social critic Barbara Aaron Reich. We'll talk about her new book that looks at the human attraction to violence. That's on WILO Radio AM 580. For now, thanks for watching and good night. To purchase a VHS copy of this program using Visa, MasterCard or Discover, call 1-800-528-7980.

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