AG's letter says health boards can regulate animal farms

ST. LOUIS -- The Missouri attorney general's office says a county health center board has the same authority as a county commission to enact a health ordinance regulating concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

While the Aug. 10 letter doesn't have the weight of a formal opinion, it has rekindled debate in rural communities struggling to find a balance between quality of life and economic enterprise.

Nowhere is the tension more pronounced than in Nodaway County in far northwest Missouri, and Marion County, in the state's northeast corner. Both are among the Missouri counties with health centers governed by elected trustees.

In both counties, the health boards and commissions are at odds over regulating CAFOs beyond what the state requires. Nodaway's trustees passed a health ordinance. Marion's want to.

"In those counties where a health center board has been established, the health center board has the same powers (as a county commission) to enact health regulations regarding CAFOs," assistant attorney general James Klahr wrote. The legislature intended them to have "coequal authority," he said.

Nodaway County's health ordinance regulating CAFOs is modeled after a decade-old one in Linn County, which the Missouri Court of Appeals has upheld, and which the Missouri Attorney General's office supported in a friend-of-the-court brief.

Nodaway County health administrator Della Rhoades said a businessman who recently won state approval to run a 5,600-sow farm in the county must apply to her office too.

"Our ordinance is in effect," she said. "We expect him to abide by all laws including county laws."

The farm operator disagrees.

"It's not legal because they did it without the blessing of the county commission," the farm's manager, Doug Garrison, said, adding that ground already has been broken.

Nodaway County Commissioner Bob Westfall said the issue has divided the community.

Terry Spence, a Putnam County farmer who favors local health ordinances, said the issue needs to be tested in the courts. Spence, who lives two miles from an 80,000-hog farm owned by Premium Standard Farms Inc., was part of an unsuccessful attempt in the 1990s to use local zoning laws to regulate PSF's operations.

The state this week issued a permit for a 2,490-hog operation near Mark Twain Lake in northeast Missouri. The applicant, David Luetkemeyer of St. Louis County, had halved his venture's hog volume to appease concerned residents.

But the Ralls County Commission passed an ordinance in June barring large hog operations within 2 miles of the lake. Luetkemeyer said Thursday he's considering raising fewer hogs the old-fashioned way, without a confined building.

Nearly 30 counties or townships have imposed additional requirements and fees on animal feeding operations beyond what is required by the state. Half of them are health ordinances.

In Marion County, where the commission is united against regulating CAFOs, the health board is considering adopting one. "There's an economic effect (to CAFOs) but what about quality of life?" asked health administrator Joan Hynek. "What we're saying is there needs to be a balance here."

Both sides of the debate say the issue likely will end up in court, and Hynek said she is trying to seek a formal opinion from the attorney general. The county's own attorney, Thomas Redington, said he reads the state law to mean neither body can promulgate a law without the other's agreement.

Meanwhile, the Missouri Association of Counties, whose membership does not include county health boards, is trying to find middle ground.

"We do not want 114 different ordinances across the state," said Cape Girardeau County Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones, who chairs a task force studying the issue.

"We're trying to eliminate these types of headaches and reach some kind of agreement ... that is good for everybody."

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On the Net:

Counties regulating animal feeding operations, from University of Missouri:

http://agebb.missouri.edu/commag/permit/restrictions.asp