Judge Blocks Hog Farm Near Missouri State Parks
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Sept. 4, 2008
Imagine being on vacation, stopping at a state park, and camping downwind from a massive pig farm.
A Missouri judge's ruling last week ensures that such a scene won't happen in the near future. Cole County Associate Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce ordered the state's Department of Natural Resources to revoke the permit it issued on Aug. 31, 2007, for a 4,800-animal concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) less than two miles from a state historic site.
"We're very gratified because we feel the court is simply telling the agency of the state government whose duty it is to protect state parks and state historic parks, to do what it should have been doing all along—to protect state parks," says Thomas B. Hall, president of Friends of Arrow Rock, Inc., which filed the lawsuit against the state department of Natural Resources (DNR) in the fall of 2007, along with the town of Arrow Rock and the nonprofit Missouri Parks Association. "We feel this is nothing surprising."
Landowner Dennis Gessling received a permit last year but had not yet built the hog farm near Arrow Rock, a town with about 80 people and a 300-acre state historic site.
"These CAFOs, these factory farms, are a real detriment to the environment, not only to historic sites but to the community around them," says attorney Richard Miller, who represented the plaintiffs. "I hope [the decision] begins to set the tenor for the rest of the country for preserving the environment and preserving our historical sites."
Joyce's Aug. 25 ruling says that no CAFO may be built within 15 miles of Arrow Rock "and nearby historic sites," which has implications for 10 other CAFOs in the area. Hall expects the state agency to appeal the decision.
The National Trust's Reaction
"The National Trust is thrilled with this decision and the court's recognition that factory farms can adversely affect rural historic places, including state historic sites, state parks, Main Street businesses, and heritage tourism destinations," says Jennifer Sandy, program officer at the trust's Midwest Office, which provided advice and support to the Arrow Rock group. "We are working with our partners to increase awareness of the impacts of CAFOs on rural landscapes and to highlight sustainable rural development strategies that enhance and support historic places." Learn more here
The National Trust named Arrow Rock to its list of Dozen Distinctive Destinations in 2006.
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