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Saturday, January 06, 2007

Environment - Ethanol, CAFOs, and Insurance

Ethanol. "Rise in Ethanol Raises Concerns About Corn as a Food" is the title of an important story in yesterday's NY Times by Alexei Barrionuevo that looks at the growth of ethanol plants and some of the world-wide economic implications, including increased retail prices of meat, poultry and dairy products.prices.

CAFOs. There have been several CAFO stories recently:

"Steuben dairy farm faces EPA sanctions" is the headline to a story from Friday by Kara Lopp that begins:

A Steuben County dairy has been found in violation of numerous environmental standards, including allowing illegal waste discharges, a report from the Environmental Protection Agency said.

At DeJong Dairy Leasing LLC, 5409 E. Ray Clark Road, outside Fremont in northern Steuben County, inspectors found farmworkers had the ability to discharge wastewater from a pond on the property into the County Road 550 East ditch, located about a half-mile from the farm. The ditch flows into Pigeon Creek, which is a tributary to the Pigeon River and the St. Joseph River, which flows to Lake Michigan.

During the inspection, a verbal agreement with the dairy’s owner was made to permanently plug the drain tile outlet from the pond.

The 39-acre, 900-cattle dairy was inspected Oct. 19 by officials from the U.S. EPA and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the report said.

The dairy is owned by Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development, LLC, based in Wauseon, Ohio.

Local operator Simon DeJong, who moved to Steuben County from the Netherlands, declined to comment Thursday, saying he hadn’t received a copy of the report.

The farm received county approval in June 2005 to expand from about 550 cattle to 900. A request to bump that number up to 1,200 was denied last year by the county commissioners.

Inspectors also found the dairy couldn’t properly inspect manure storage areas because depth markers used to judge when the waste is in danger of running off were never installed.

Here is an EPA press release on De Jong Dairy LLC Fremont, Ind.

From Friday's Gary Post Tribune, a story by Carrie Napoleon that begins:

Despite strong protest from nearby residents, Wolf Creek Calf Co. was given permission to proceed with plans to convert the Schuringa Poultry Farm into a 10,000-head calf farm.

The special exception was approved with conditions 4-1 by Jasper County officials at a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting before about 250 residents last week. Board member Michael Kozuch, a Wheatfield resident, voted against the measure.

"They had several qualifications they placed," Donald Shelmon, attorney for Wolf Creek, said Wednesday.

Among the conditions the board required was limiting the number of calves allowed in hutches outside the existing barns at the site, he said.

The property can have a maximum of 3,000 hutches for the calves.

A hutch is about 5-feet by 10- feet and is for one calf. The remainder of the animals must be housed in the barn.

Shelmon said his clients had originally planned for about 8,000 hutches. The hutches enable workers to provide one- on-one attention to the animals and better care for and managing the herd.

All of the calves housed at the property will be a couple days old to 90 days old.

"The more huts you have, the better the survival rate," Shelmon said.

Board member John Korniak said Thursday the conditions were put in place to help ease resident concerns.

He said he expected the calf farm would not be much different than the chicken farm, which has been operating for almost 40 years.

"I don't think people will see a change whatsoever," Korniak said. "It's surrounded by trees. They are not building any new buildings. There's going to be more screening planted on the west side of those buildings."

Korniak said he does not expect the calf farm to affect the value or desirability of homes in the area because the existing chicken farm did not.

He said people have to understand this is a farming community.

"If people want to live in farming communities, they will have to put up with a little bit of farming, be it crops or livestock," he said.

Environmental Insurance. This story by Joe Carlson in today's NWI Times is worthy of note:
Melody Cleaners, facing orders to remove groundwater pollution on four properties in East Chicago and Hammond, is suing to force its insurer to pay for the cleanup.

The retail dry cleaning company must remove the toxic chemical "perc" from the ground around its four stores following discovery of the chemical in 2004. The chemical "migrated" to a neighboring property in at least one case, state environmental spokeswoman Amy Hartsock said.

Perc is the common name for perchloroethylene, a suspected carcinogen that breaks down into an even more dangerous chemical over time, Hammond Environmental Director Ron Novak said.

"This is a dangerous substance. It needs to be handled carefully. You don't want it in your groundwater," Novak said.

Drinking water in Hammond and East Chicago comes from Lake Michigan, not wells, but the chemical could find its way into residential drainage systems if not removed, Novak said.

The owners of Melody Cleaners reported the contamination to the state Department of Environmental Management. The company claims the Peoria-based insurer should pick up the cost to remediate the land.

Melody filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Hammond against Argonaut Great Central Insurance Co. of Peoria, which issued several insurance policies to Melody between 1988 and 1995. A spokeswoman for Argonaut declined to comment.

Filings in the lawsuit state that the company's policy typically only covers the costs of environmental cleanup if the chemicals were released by a natural act, such as fire, lightning, sinkholes or vandalism. The policy was limited to $10,000 in damages.

But Novak said that type of argument may not fly in Indiana, which has the nation's strictest laws to hold insurers liable for environmental cleanup costs.

"These pollution-exclusion things can be cut through very easily by an attorney who knows the law in Indiana," Novak said.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 6, 2007 02:17 PM
Posted to Environment