Cole County judge boots two from CAFO permit vote
A Cole County judge ruled that two commissioners cannot take part in a vote regarding a controversial hog farm.
Judge Daniel Green made the ruling Tuesday in response to a lawsuit by Friends of Responsible Agriculture more than a year ago. The group, made up of local landowners near the proposed site on County Road 227 in Callaway County, have fought the construction of a 10,320-head confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, on County Road 227 by Iowa-based Eichelberger Farms, citing potential harmful effects on nearby water and soil. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources allowed Eichelberger Farms and its local outfit, Callaway Farrowing, to start working in December 2014. FoRAG appealed that decision for the Clean Water Commission to later decide.
FoRAG’s lawsuit dealt with several tours the Commission took in March 2015 of similar CAFOs in mid-Missouri, and an unscheduled “drive-by” of the proposed site two commissioners made. State law says commissioners must limit their decision-making on the appeal to the facts presented at a February hearing involving all sides. FoRAG claimed they had no notice of the CAFO tours that happened after the February hearing, and opponents of the CAFO were unable to provide any rebuttal evidence to the farm operators who, they believe, support the construction of Callaway Farrowing’s site.
The two commissioners that drove by the site, Chairman Todd Parnell and Ashley McCarty, can no longer decide on the Callaway Farrowing appeal. Judge Green called the scheduling of CAFO tours “questionable” while the Callaway Farrowing permit was under appeal, but gave the CWC “the benefit of the doubt that the tours of these three facilities were for educational purposes and were not directly related to the Callaway Farrowing permit appeal.
“However, by driving by and observing the location and topography of the site of the Callaway Farrowing CAFO while the appeal was pending before them, Chairman Parnell and Commissioner McCarty obtained ‘facts and evidence’ directly regarding the Callaway Farrowing permit appeal outside the hearing record and without any notice to [FoRAG],” Judge Green wrote.
Jeff Jones, president of FoRAG, has long said Callaway Farrowing’s site could harm soil and water in the rural area in west Callaway County. Several nearby landowners have agreements with Callaway Farrowing to use the manure produced at its barns as fertilizer. Employees would pump the manure from pits underneath the three buildings, then inject it directly beneath the row crops. Jones and other landowners fear storm runoff or human error with the manure’s application could lead to polluted waters near the site.
