The following is from the Hawkeye Fly Fishers Association website:
www.commonlink.com/hffa
Posted by Tom Mathews
Open Letter About French Creek Hog Confinement
-Bob Wolf, neighbor
My wife and I live in a farmhouse on a ridge in northeast Iowa
overlooking French Creek, one of the state's premiere trout streams. The
stream is used by fishermen and campers from late spring until early
fall, and DNR game wardens make regular visits to the stream to ensure
that everyone is fishing by the rules. Several summers ago, several
wardens stationed themselves about a mile from the stream, checking
every car that left, ready to tag a $15 fine for every trout above the
limit.
Now if the DNR is concerned about protecting trout, you'd expect them to
get worked up about a hog confinement operation that could wipe out
every fish in the stream. I was naive enough to think so.
A half mile to our east, a neighboring farmer, Wayne Weber, has built
three hog confinement barns under contract with Murphy Family Farms.
This operation is on the French Creek watershed.
Last week I called the DNR's deputy director, Don Paulin, who fields
calls from angry Iowans. To my surprise, Paulin didn't know about the
operation and doesn't even think French Creek is particularly worth
saving His response was: "I would like to point out that it would be
difficult for the legislature or the courts to determine what is a
valuable stream or isn't a valuable stream." In other words, public
opinion counts for nothing. Besides, Paulin said, "Every inch of Iowa is
in the watershed of a creek." So why worry about this one, or any,
right? Why worry about contamination at all?
In the course of the conversation I accused Paulin, who speaks in the
reasoned, measured tones of the career bureaucrat, of being a
bureaucrat. He didn't like the term, and said he thought of himself as
someone who enforced regulations. But does the DNR do that?
Consider this. An individual or company that wants to build a
confinement operation must submit its plans to the DNR. But once the
plans are approved, the DNR makes no on-site inspection to assure that
the operation was built according to specs! Blowing the whistle on
violators, a DNR employee at the Manchester station told me, is up to
local residents. The mega hog producers couldn't have gotten a sweeter
deal from Iowa.
The DNR pretends to be concerned, but isn't. Paulin said, "Are you aware
of every statement that the DNR has made on this subject (of water
contamination)?" I asked him to send me those statements. After a brief
silence he said, "I don't know where to locate them."
Larry Wilson, the head of Iowa DNR, is a Republican appointee. Needless
to say, the Republican-dominated legislature was responsible for
crafting the statute that - until recently reversed by the Iowa Supreme
Court - stripped Iowans of the right to sue hog operations over nuisance
- for odor, water contamination, property devaluation. Redress before
the law is perhaps the most fundamental right of a U.S. citizen, and the
politicians and Iowa Pork Producers took it away from us, if only for a
time.
Now that our right has been restored, Iowans need to fight for the right
for local control over confinement operations. Remember, it is easier
for the hog industry to control one set of politicians in Des Moines
than to control 99 sets of county supervisors throughout the state.
When I accused Paulin of being a bureaucrat solely interested in saving
his job, he said, "I'm not interested in saving my job." That says it.
When Governor-elect Vilsack goes in, let's hope he not only clears out
Larry Wilson, but gives walking papers to the rest of DNR management.
Robert Wolf, Nov. 1998
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