Citizens to protest proposed factory hog farm at McDonough County public hearing
* Call or e-mail McDoungh County Board to fight CAFO
Online Staff Report
A plan to build an industrial-scale concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) that will house thousands of hogs will be considered by the McDonough County Board on Tuesday, July 12, 2011. The proposal is of great concern to the local community, experts, and environmental and public health advocates.
The public hearing will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Sandburg Theatre at the University Union at Western Illinois University.
The Shamrock Acres, LLC hog facility is being proposed by Professional Swine Management, a company with a serious track record of other polluting CAFOs in Illinois. Local area residents are concerned that the facility will have a disastrous impact on their way of life. The facility is to be located near a daycare for young children, a regularly frequented park, nature trails, and tourist areas.
Large-scale livestock factories and waste application sites routinely release bacteria, viruses, and hundreds of toxic pollutants into the environment, opponents say.
Peer reviewed research demonstrates that children, elderly, and immune compromised individuals are most susceptible to illness from such pollution.
The community is also concerned about the history of CAFOs causing property value decline and diminished quality of life due to dangerous gases, odors and particulates, as well as negative impacts to the surrounding watershed and roadways.
A unanimous resolution has already been passed by Eldorado Township, stating that they are opposed to any facility that would house over 1,000 animals.
For more information about the proposed Shamrock Acres, LLC factory hog farm, please visit the Rural Residents for Responsible Agriculture (RRRA) website at ruralresidentsforresponsibleagriculture.com.
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One Comment
The sewage can be sold, and usually is!
If there were 60 hog farms in the area, we would see the same problems. It’s the city people that want China to make our meat for us like they make everything else!
As I have always said, if you don’t want the hog farm or the dope house, buy them out!
The real problem is probably that the hog farms don’t look all pretty and pink as they do in the cartoons!
1000 pigs used to be nothing for a large farm operation. What about 1000 cows for your milk? Oh, sure, not in my back yard!
There are no dangerous gasses! There are smelly gasses! It’s noisy! Not a lot of greenery! Lots of little houses all over pastures full of dead grass and mud. It’s a pig farm! That’s what a pig farm is and will be!
Make the farm have pretty fences and happy signs for the children to read as their bus takes them to school. If not here, WHERE?
Petty foolishness is costing a business too much! When will it end? What the heck is responsible agriculture anyway? We raise animals to kill them, and the more efficient we do it the more profitable the business! The parts we can’t feed humans we feed other animals! The waste is spread on the fields we plant our vegetables in! Responsibility is ending stupidity!