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Sunday, March 04, 2007
Environment - More on CAFO bills pending in General Assembly
Rick Callahan of the AP has a lengthy story today in the LCJ headlined "Legislators tackle livestock headaches: Factory-style farms increase." Some quotes:
INDIANAPOLIS — Rural Indiana residents have complained for years about the stench and dust wafting from the state's largest livestock farms.There is much more to the story. For more on pending legislation, see this ILB entry from 2/27/07.Those concerns are reflected in several bills this legislative session aimed at tightening the farms' regulation.
As lawmakers debate that legislation, however, records show state regulators are approving the sprawling, factory-style farms at a record rate.
Last year alone, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management approved 106 of the very largest of these farms, clearing the way for more than 2.4 million animals at new farms, according to department records.
Those 106 farms are the largest number of concentrated animal feeding operations that the agency has approved in a single year since it began giving them separate approval in 2003 from smaller farms known as confined feeding operations.
In fact, last year's approvals of the largest farms represent more than the agency endorsed in the previous three years combined, records show.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 4, 2007 10:18 AM
Posted to Environment