By Barton Seebach
Canton, MN
The Catalpa LLC factory hog farm proposal that is being considered for a permit by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has residents, including me, worried about pollution of our streams and our well water. The nearly 5,000 sow farrowing operation proposed by an Iowa factory farm operator, Brad Herman, will produce more than seven million gallons of raw liquid manure annually that will be applied on fields in Newburg, Canton, and Preble townships. The application fields and the confinement buildings themselves would sit too near land features such as sinkholes, stream sinks, and persistent and intermittent streams and highly erodible landscapes that can quickly transfer surface pollutants into our groundwater and streams. The very features that make Fillmore County such a beautiful and vibrant natural ecosystem, when we respect it, also make it highly vulnerable to destruction when we do not. Factory farms such as the hog farm proposed by Catalpa LLC risk overloading our local ecology with high concentrations of manure, antibiotics, and other contaminants and damaging our drinking water, trout streams, and wells. Factory farms are not Minnesota nice and do not respect their neighbors’ property values and quality of life.
This particular factory farm may produce more than 100,000 piglets annually, so it seems likely that building it will lead to dozens more finishing barns nearby, right here in Fillmore County. This is the time to raise our voices. Pollution can travel for miles through our groundwater and surface water. Even newer and deeper wells are not safe in our karst environments. I want my children and grandchildren (and yours) to have safe, clean water, breathable air, and a community they can be proud of. You can raise your voice and your questions, and ask the MPCA to require an environmental impact statement that will provide answers to your questions, at the community meeting on June 19 at 6 p.m. at the Mabel Community Center.
Common sense, community values, and even scripture warn us not to destroy the community’s resources. That’s what factory farms do, however, so please speak up!
“Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?” (Ezekiel 34:18-19).
John hosemann says
There are no constraints on this type of hog expansion that is following the vertically integrated poultry model….and it will not be controlled as long as the federal government subsidizes corn and soybean production…the literal ocean of corn has to go somewhere so hogs are a handy outlet…environment be damned… federal and state regulators ought to be ashamed of themselves if they APPROVE this boondoggle…the same is true with huge DAIRIES where the dairy cow is only a vehicle that eats rocket fuel to produce ever more milk