Comprehensively overhauling confined animal feeding laws to protect air quality, water quality, and the neighbors
Today confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) can be legally built on karst technology; the owners don’t even have to hire a geologists to look for sinkholes. CAFOs can be sited in the watershed of Outstanding Iowa Waters, such as the trout streams in north-east Iowa. What is worse is that the Board of Supervisors has limited say in the siting, because state law forbids local control and local zoning laws for CAFOs. Furthermore, although the permits the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issues for CAFOs describe the number of animals in a CAFO, the DNR currently has no way to verify the numbers. It is time for commonsense comprehensive CAFO legislation that protects the public.
The legislature has the power to regulate the CAFO industry and to protect Iowa’s air quality, water quality, and the neighbors. It is time for the legislature to step up to the plate and begin a major overhaul of the CAFO regulations.
Ask your legislators to support changing the CAFO laws to better protect the neighbors, allow local control of siting, to prohibit building CAFOs on karst geology, and to prohibit building CAFOs on outstanding Iowa waters.
