Bill Du Bois

Brookings Register, Speakout column

July 1, 2004

We have a right to vote on the future of Brookings County. Some envision huge factory farms along what they’re calling the I-29 Dairy corridor.

Flaunting local wishes, the Brookings zoning board has already approved two giant operations and is considering a third. The South Dakota Supreme Court clearly says if a zoning permit changes the direction of a county, we have the right to vote. However, the zoning board refuses to even publish the decision saying if voters don’t like it, take them to court.

South Dakota voters have consistently said they don’t want big factory farms. But the industrial farmers refuse to take no for an answer. The state should be investing in helping small and medium sized farmers and businesses. Instead, they embrace a short-sighted version of economic development that strains existing county resources, endangers our health and destroys the quality of life for neighbors.

In 2001, the South Dakota Department of Economic Development awarded South Dakota Ag Producers Ventures $203,500 for a feasibility study to set up a business “to attract out-of-state dairy operators.” State legislator Joel Dykstra is the Chief Executive Officer. South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel is on the Board of Directors. This private company sells start-up packages for $350,000 not includi;j ng the cost of land. According to their website, they offer “FULLY PERMITTED, construction-ready dairy sites,” “LOCAL ZONING APPROVAL,” “long term manure easements,” and “preliminary APPROVAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERMITS.”

No wonder, they’re so insistent that we don’t have the right to vote on zoning permits. Are they really selling out our democracy for a price?

In 2002, two court cases meant voters could interfere with their plans. Residents in Bon Homme and Hutchinson counties collected signatures to put zoning permits issued to large feedlots on the ballot. The Supreme Court ruled citizens have the right to vote on permits.

Factory farmers responded getting the legislature to pass HB 1281 so people couldn’t refer a zoning permit to a vote. Over 25,000 citizens then signed petitions preventing that law from taking effect and putting it on the November 2004 ballot. Knowing they’d lose any vote, the legislature revoked HB 1281 this past February. Some then tried to pass another bill, SB 163, to do the same thing. It would have made zoning permits an “administrative” decision. Translated out of “lawyer-ese,” that meant we couldn’t vote on permits. When legislators found that out, even one of the bill’s sponsors withdrew support. It lost. Still, industrial farmers are pretending none of this happened and we don’t have a right to vote.

Some say the giant feedlots and massive dairy farms have to go somewhere. NO, THEY DON’T. There are healthy ways to produce the food we consume. The hormones factory dairy operations feed their cows have been linked to breast cancer in women, prostrate cancer in men and may even be the reason kids are going into puberty two or three years early. Dairy cows in factory farms are raised under such sickening conditions they must be constantly kept on antibiotics. If overused, antibiotics are less effective when humans get sick and we’re getting antibiotic resistant strains of diseases.

Twenty percent of employees of confined animal operations develop severe respiratory problems. Results are similar for neighbors within 2 miles. Having to block out the stink also takes a toll on mental health. Neighbors have greater depression, stress, anger, fatigue, even confusion. No wonder property values plunge.

We should be able to debate whether we want this to become the I-29 Manure Corridor. While such lends itself to all sorts of colorful slogans for the county, I’m not sure that’s what we want to become. At the very least, we have a right to vote on it.