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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Environment - Concern about proposed Jasper County CAFO bordering the Jasper/Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area

The Gary Post-Tribune reports today, in a lengthy story by Jon Seidel headlined "Hog farm ruffles haven in crane migration trek," that:

A hog farming company is facing a collection of close-knit neighbors banding together to keep their land free from what they see as a blight on their community.

In spite of a 1,000-signature petition against it, and after two meetings with Jasper County’s Board of Zoning Appeals, Belstra Milling Co. of DeMotte has begun work on a 2,496-sow hog farm, just north of where the Reeses live. On the farm’s northern border is the Jasper/Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, an internationally recognized “Important Bird Area” because it supports a significant proportion of the species’ total population. About 20,000 cranes migrate through it every year, and about 30,000 people visit every year to watch them.

Diane Packett, president of the Sycamore Chapter of the Audubon Society in West Lafayette, said she would be worried about any major developments in the cranes’ migration path.

“If they put a shopping mall in the same place, we would still be worried about it,” Packett said.

The Reeses and a coalition of other neighbors want Belstra stopped, and they are appealing Belstra’s permit from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Belstra representatives insist their worries are baseless, but the Reeses don’t want any harm to come to the cranes who gather on the very land where the manure from the farm will be injected.

“Why did they pick here?” Reese said.

Malcolm DeKryger, Belstra’s vice president, said the answer to that is, in part, because of the small population of people in the surrounding area.

“We really do have very few number of people within a mile,” DeKryger said.

Also, he said, he is confident the Reeses and those working with them have nothing to worry about when it comes to the cranes. DeKryger has looked to the Department of Natural Resources’ Jim Bergens, the property manager of the Jasper/Pulaski area who has a degree in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University in California, to help make sure the cranes are safe.

“The DNR was represented at both (BZA) meetings,” DeKryger said. “As a matter of fact, they were very supportive.”

The DNR recently told Bergens not to speak to reporters about the Belstra development. However, that order came after he spoke to the Post-Tribune last week.

Bergens said his opinions on the Belstra matter are based strictly on his background knowledge of the cranes and the Jasper County area. He said he has done no research on what the Belstra farm might do to the area. * * *

Recently, Bergens said, endangered whooping cranes have joined the migration path. Some of them have been found in Jasper County as recently as mid-November. They are part of a “nonessential experimental” project, Bergens said.

“If something were to happen to these birds,” Bergens said about the whooping cranes, “they’re not essential to the actual wild population.”

The Sandhill cranes, Bergens said, began to thrive through various types of protection and resilience against human progress.

“Some species are able to adapt to what people have done to the environment,” Bergens said.

That resilience might be tested again. If Belstra’s farm is built, hog manure will be injected 6 to 8 inches under the soil that the cranes congregate on. Belstra will use GPS technology to make sure the waste goes where it won’t cause any damage, DeKryger said.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 6, 2005 08:06 AM
Posted to Environment