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Environmental Organization Encourages Delaware County To Fight For CAFO Regulations

By Val Jones, IPR News | Published on in Agriculture, Community, Government, Local News
A CAFO off Route 25 in Tippecanoe County. (Photo: Annie Ropeik)

Delaware County Commissioners are considering changes to county ordinances regulating large farms known as CAFOs that raise thousands of animals.  Thursday night, opponents of CAFOs that welcome increased regulations heard encouragement from the Hoosier Environmental Council.  As IPR’s Val Jones reports, the statewide organization says CAFOs are both a local problem and a statewide problem.

While speaking in Delaware County, Kim Ferraro, the senior staff attorney for the Hoosier Environmental Council, says the residents turning out concerned about CAFOs are voicing those concerns at the right time.

“Delaware County is in a great position because it doesn’t have a high number of factory farms yet. Based on latest IDEM information, I think they have six, as compared Carol County, who has over 100 confined feeding operations. So if Delaware County wants to get ahead of the game and protect its beautiful rural areas and waterways, it needs to take action now.”

Read More: Does County Zoning For CAFOs Work? Purdue Research Seeks An Answer

Ferraro believes the Delaware County zoning ordinance for farms needs a complete different category for these factories, because they are not just like any other farm structure.

“How that ordinance turns out is going to be largely up to the citizens.”

A proposal to change county ordinances on the large farms includes a larger distance between manure lagoons and drinking water wells and buffers between farms and people living nearby.

Of the about 50 people that attended the meeting with the Hoosier Environmental Council, none spoke in favor of CAFOs.