States might soon be taking a new approach when considering permits for huge livestock farms. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
Transcript
States might soon be taking a new approach when considering permits for huge livestock farms. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
These big livestock growing operations such as hog confinement areas are controversial because they’re smelly and they often have large lagoons of liquid manure. In some cases, that manure leaks into waterways, polluting streams. In Iowa, the Department of Natural Resources is developing an environmental checklist… several dozen things that hog producers can do to score points that make approval of the operation more likely.
They’re things such as keeping the operations far from homes, hospitals, roads and water sources.
Kara Flynn is with the National Pork Producers Council. She says an
Iowa-type plan isn’t necessary for the big pig farms.
“They’re not operating in the 1970’s; they’re operating in 2002. And they’re using technology that allows them to, as best that they can, be environmental or better environmental standards, if you will.”
No other state has gotten this far with such restrictions, but almost every hog-producing state is trying to find a solution to the environmental problems associated with the large confinement farms.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.