Overview of the article: Feedstuffs Magazine mentions a rally in Des
Moines.
The Des Moines Register also talked about the rally. The lastest on
the efforts near Elk Horn is also mentioned. One thing I did not
know is that Sioux County district court ordered Pork Extra LLC
to pay $100,000 in damages to Joseph and  Linda Gacke. It mentions
the unconstituitionality of banning nuciance suits.

Concerned citizens and family farm activists demanding changes in state
regulations converged on Des Moines, Iowa, last week as politicians
prepared
for the 2002 legislative session. The annual crusade against large
confined
swine farms is gaining momentum as producers expand and legislators
prepare
to debate regulatory changes. The Des Moines protest came in the wake of
a
Sioux County, Iowa, district court nuisance ruling against a hog farm
and
plans by a Harlan, Iowa, producer to site a 5,600-sow facility in
Audubon
County, among other projects proposed in several counties.

On Jan. 8, the Sioux County district court ordered Pork Extra LLC to pay

$100,000 in damages to Joseph and Linda Gacke. Filed July 9, 2001, the
case
is one of several pending nuisance actions that could turn against the
pork
industry. Sioux County residents since 1974, the Gackes moved a farm
house
to a site 1,200 ft. from the hog farm a year before swine facilities
were
built. The plaintiffs alleged that odor harmed their quality of life and

property values. The operation consisted of two 2,000-head barns on 320
acres. Manure is applied twice annually.

Producers were ordered to pay $46,500, plus interest, for "past
inconvenience, emotional distress and pain and suffering" caused by
odors
and $50,000 plus interest for property value erosion. The judge cited
the
1998 Bormann vs. Kossuth County case in which the Iowa Supreme Court
found
portions of the state's agricultural nuisance exemption
unconstitutional.

By allowing landowners to subject neighbors to nuisance, the state
violated
the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (takings clause), according
to
the Bormann ruling. "The right to maintain a nuisance which affects use
and
enjoyment of an adjoining landowner's property is an easement on
adjoining
landowners. Easements are a protected property interest subject to just
compensation under federal and state laws," the supreme court concluded.

Compromise in limbo

A site selection committee may have found suitable alternatives, but a
proposed Audubon County pork project faces a broader challenge. Caught
in a
rising tide of public opposition to confinement operations, the proposed

5,600-sow facility has been drawn into the battle over regulations on
big
units. After two years of strong profits, producers are looking to grow.

Citizens aligned against the project are networking with residents from
other counties in calling for revised environmental laws. Legislators
have
said they will consider amended regulations this session. The "not in my

backyard" syndrome and pork industry are headed for a high-speed
collision.
In recent weeks, some citizens have called publicly for a moratorium on
large units.

The proposed Audubon County operation is much larger than units built
prior
to Iowa's 1995 environmental regulation on confined animal feeding
operations (HR 519). Land-use conflicts are common as economies of scale

increase and more residents move to the country.

Like most western Iowa counties, Audubon is primarily agricultural.
Compounding the risk of conflict is an expanding tourist business. "With

depressed commodity prices, we cannot survive by just selling corn,"
said
Eivind Lillehoj, a member of the county site selection committee who
believes the community must balance competing interests. The controversy
has
tapped a much deeper sentiment, he conceded. "I support livestock as an
economic generator, and we can find a better, less controversial site,"
he
noted.

Even that may not be enough to satisfy critics in today's political
climate,
he noted. "We know how to feed corn and add value, and our population
has
declined by more than 50% in 30 years," said Lillehoj, a retired
agricultural microbiologist. He thinks more livestock are vital in a
county
with fewer than 7,000 people, a grain surplus and whose largest employer
is
a local veterinary clinic and swine management company with a boar stud.

The hog unit planned by Gary Weihs, owner of Natural Pork Production LC
of
Harlan, Iowa, would generate 10 or 12 jobs and boost tax revenues,
Lillehoj
said. Developers said they will relinquish their original site, a former

Farmers Hybrid sales center 2.5 miles south of Elk Horn, Iowa, if a good

alternative is found (Feedstuffs, Nov. 12 and Dec. 17, 2001). Elk Horn
boasts a Danish heritage center that draws thousands of tourists
annually.
To appease critics, Weihs formed a committee to consider alternatives.

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