Loophole lets animal farms evade pollution rules

It should not be that hard to find out if there is a factory farm near you. But for some Missourians, it has turned into a cat-and-mouse game. That is because some livestock corporations may have found a way to slip their farms past state pollution regulations, using a practice that is legal but has the potential to create serious pollution hazards. Instead of building megafarms, they work with several smaller farms, each of which has fewer animals than would trigger the state pollution rules. So while Missouri closely regulates about 450 indoor farms, there are hundreds–possibly more than a thousand–with confined animals and waste lagoons that don't fall under state law. No one knows exactly how many there are, said a Missouri Department of Natural Resources official. The practice has created more than a stir in Barton County, south of Kansas City, where one corporation has contracted with at least a dozen farmers in the last couple of years. Zach McGuire noticed several of the smaller factory farms cropping up near his home in Barton County, and he has joined a number of residents complaining about pollution and odors. "In southwest Missouri they are going in like gangbusters to get in under the state's limits," said McGuire, a traditional farmer near Lamar. "It's like living in a porta-potty." To find out how many indoor farms are in Barton County, McGuire and a friend began flying over the countryside to document them. So far, they say, they have found about 50. But Martin Bunton, co-owner of a feed store in the county who lives less than two miles from a corporate contract farmer, said industrial farming is getting a bad rap. "I get really upset when everybody acts like big corporate agriculture is odor and all that, and isn't doing any good anywhere," Bunton said. "In 10 years of living there, I have never smelled anything bad." Factory farms are controversial in Missouri because of the massive pollution they generate. Since the mid-1990s, the state has regulated the largest ones, known as Class 1 farms, which require permits and extensive waste-management plans. Class 1 farms are divided into subcategories by size. The smaller ones, known as Class 2 farms, can have thousands of animals too, but have few pollution regulations. For example, state law categorizes a factory farm that has more than 3,000 sows as Class 1. It must have a permit to operate, annual inspections, setbacks from streams, and buffers to protect residents from the odors and pollution. But a Class 2 that has 2,499 sows or fewer can begin operating no matter how close it is to a residence, and it doesn't have inspections or many of the other requirements. Derek Steen, the Department of Natural Resources' agriculture chief with the water protection program, said Class 2 factory farms are not supposed to discharge into streams. But he acknowledged that state regulators normally would not know if laws were violated unless someone complained. "It's an honor system to an extent," he said. "And there are some who don't do a good job, and some who do." Steen acknowledged that Class 2 operations could pose a risk. "The concern is when you take them all into account, it does add up to a substantial amount of manure that has to be managed," Steen said. Leslie Holloway of the Missouri Farm Bureau agreed that corporations are no longer building megafarms in Missouri. The number of those types of farms has remained at about 450 for five years or more, she said.