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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Environment - Several recent stories
"IDEM boss kicks off Porter County Earth Day" was the headline to a long story yesterday by Vicki Urbanik in the Chesterton Tribune. Some quotes:
Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Tom Easterly kicked off the local Earth Day celebration on Sunday with a positive message about the state of the environment in the region.On another environmental topic, last Friday the Indianapolis Star ran an editorial headlined "Tough foreman needed over 'factory farming'", urging passage of SB 431:Easterly told his audience, gathered in a barn at the Sunset Hill Farm County Park, that he can recall driving through the region and wondering how people survived here. But since then, significant progress has been made cleaning up contaminated sites and improving the air quality.
Clean air in Northwest Indiana “is not the perception most people have” of the region, Easterly said. But he pointed out that federal officials just recently designated LaPorte County as in full compliance with ozone standards, and that they will next consider re-designating Lake and Porter counties as well. * * *
Easterly emphasized that land use decisions are local decisions, and that local people the best ones to decide if a specific project is wanted in their community. The role of the IDEM when issuing permits is to focus only on whether a specific project meets environmental criteria, he said.
“That’s way different than what most people want us to do,” he said.
He noted that he has heard complaints about some permits IDEM has issued. Though he didn’t give an example, IDEM’s issuance of a permit for a waste transfer station on the Porter-LaPorte County Line Road has prompted criticism. [ILB - that would be the Pines transfer station - for background start here]
But Easterly said permit issues are not the same as land use decisions, which should be made by local officials, not the state. Just because IDEM determines that projects meet environmental standards, “doesn’t mean you should allow them,” he said.
Now in conference committee, the legislation would substantially hike permit fees for the farms in order to pay for more frequent and more thorough inspections and governance by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Only 16 IDEM inspectors are available to monitor the large operations, meaning inspections are six or seven years apart. Gard wants, among other measures, to make those inspections annual.Hoosier AG Today with Gary Truitt responded with a piece titled "The Indianapolis Star Attacks Indiana Livestock Producers."Never an easy sell given the financial clout of the industry, legislation is hung up now on the issue of local option. Some pro-CAFOs lawmakers wish to prohibit counties and municipalities from imposing stricter rules than the state's on such matters as the distance farms must keep between themselves and, for example, schools. Gard opposes this "one-size-fits-all" approach and hopes the final bill will allow local communities the discretion to enhance safeguards according to their peculiar geology, population and other factors.
Gard also insists that confined-feeding farms are generally well run and that a more aggressive IDEM will discourage the "few bad apples" who make for bad neighbors by failing to control wastes and odors.
As public testimony has dramatized, many of those neighbors and many experts on rural ecology and economics see a much larger threat. They have called for a moratorium on new permits while the highly controversial phenomenon of CAFOs is studied. That bid failed in this session and deserves to be brought up again. A Purdue University study now under way will be a welcome addition to the discussion.
Meanwhile, first things first: Pass SB 431, and don't hogtie local communities that wish to protect themselves.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 24, 2007 09:20 AM
Posted to Environment