This is a big deal for us local legal folks:
Wayne County judge is stepping down (Pal-Item)
P. Thomas Snow has been appointed Chairman of the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission by Gov. Daniels. He starts March 16, leaving behind 20 years of quality work on the local bench.
Daniels will [...]
I remember feeling very alien when I first came to Richmond in 1985. This place and its people are very different than rural Texas where I grew up.
I grew up with Houston Public Radio playing in the background, and WMUB provided an instant reminder of home. The station, operated [...]
Analysis: CAFOs caused road damage (Pal-Item): “Two feeding operations in Randolph County caused $57,000 in damage to its roads last year, according to an analysis given to Delaware County planning officials.”
[...]Michael Lewis and David Einhorn’s editorial in the NYT is a must read. Most of it is just stating the obvious, but since the obvious has been flatly denied for a decade - it is worth saying:
The American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Electric and the municipal bond [...]
Dairy worker dies in manure lagoon in rural Bluffton, Indiana:
[...]An Indiana conservation officer says 23-year-old Nicholas Cruz had been cleaning out a cattle lot at Sunny Park Dairy and dumping manure into the lagoon Friday morning when he apparently lost control of the skid loader.
It is officially over, Obama picks CAFO proponent Tom Vilsack of Iowa for Agriculture:
Iowa Ex-Governor Picked for Agriculture Secretary (NYT)
More:
Why Obama Might Be Terrible « Whiskey Burn
Daily Kos: Tom “I Heart Monsanto” Vilsack, This One’s For You
Report finds ‘no practical difference’ between charter, traditional schools (Star Press). So that is the headline, and the push will go to the legislature next, seeking to freeze any new charter schools.
The opponents will take this report to mean that charter’s have proven to be [...]
A short note. I get most of my news these days through my Google Reader - everything important has a feed or its not really important . . .
When this headline came across, I swear I though it was from my Onion feed, but I was wrong:
Well, not much time for blogging these days - - - but to update the Aides Task Force story I covered previously, William Selkirk was finally convicted and sentenced on the Fayette County criminal charges. The entry from the court, reported on Doxpop, reads as follows:
Sentencing - [...]
A couple of years ago, the State Division of Children Services (or whatever it was called back then . . .) started a shift towards centralized control of its units, as opposed to letting county directors run their own shops. This regional, or top down control model likely resulted in [...]
For the history on this issue see these posts: Aids Task Force: Update and Wayne County Aids Task Force: Prosecution Time.
William Selkirk faced 10 felony counts in Wayne County arising out of his time as the director of the non-profit. HE plead guilty back in 2007 [...]
With little notice, the Bush administration released the new CAFO rules on Friday - with an overly full news cycle, few have noticed, but you can read them here (PDF).
What’s included? Self-certification, zero discharge = no Clean Water Act permit. Operators will also have to start [...]
Reynolds, Indiana was to be a model for alternative energy efforts in the state - mostly, efforts to utilize Ag resources in producing energy - like ethanol. This was one of Gov. Daniels’s big pushes. I noted earlier that the efforts were running into practical difficulties (Biotown we hardly [...]
I had my 1st oral argument before the Indiana Supreme Court on Wednesday. I have argued before the Court of Appeals before, but this was a different experience. I was surprised by how close the judges were to the attorneys (I was also surprised with attorney John Maley (Richmond native) [...]
Stacy Sneeringer of Wellesley College produced a study released in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics linking large increases in livestock production in a give county to increases in infant mortality in the first month of live:
A 100 percent increase in livestock production in a county being associated with [...]
Date set for megadairy hearing - Palladium-Item IDEM will gather public comment on November 13, 2008 at 6:30PM at the Union County High School on the proposed Union County Dairy CAFO on Mitchell Road. See the permit application [...]
September 2008 report from the GAO says the EPA does not have the data to assess the risk posed by CAFO to human health:
Since 2002, at least 68 government-sponsored or peer-reviewed studies have been completed that examined air and water quality issues associated with animal feeding operations [...]
No comment, just passing it on: Union Co. commissioners adopt livestock ordinance:
The Union County livestock zoning ordinance for CAFOs and CFOs adopted and amended Monday:
- Includes setbacks of a quarter-mile from residences, a half-mile from state park and reservoir land boundaries and churches, and a mile from schools [...]
Just a roundup. My feelings on blogging lately (maybe always) have been fairly negative. Maybe not negative, but I’ve not been very excited about it. I this Ernie the Attorney’s recent post sums up my current sentiments on the subject: Is it true, kind and helpful?
So, to speak [...]
Whitney L. Stump of Muncie gained some recognition when he was arrested for criminal mischief up in Delaware County after he repainted his own crosswalk on the street near his home.
He grew frustrated with motorist who blew through a stop sign at a nearby intersection, and the City’s [...]
Last weekend, Stateline Agri Inc. (also known as Stateline Farms and Kremer Family Farms) applied 27,000 gallons of hog manure to a field about a mile south of Ind. 32. Heavy rains Monday washed that manure off the field and into a drainage tile into the river, said [...]
Delaware County is considering them:
For the third consecutive year, the city-county planning commission is debating whether or not to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Star Press (Seth Slabaugh).
And also in Randolph County, which is kicking off its new CAFO committee:
The nine-person [...]
No surprises here; Hog born dust can be bad for you: Exposure to hog barn dust alters airway epithelial ciliary beating, a study from the University of Nebraska Medial Center via the European Respiratory Journal.
[...]The US EPA is blogging, or at least people at the EPA are being permitted to post at the “Official Blog of the US EPA.” It is called Greenversations, and today’s question is Why are you or aren’t you buying green power?
This is weird, but probably just a function of division of government powers. I’ve seen local office holder doing battle before, but typically not with firearms:
A judge has begun carrying a gun at work after ordering a court employee to stay away from him. Miami County [Ohio] Municipal Court [...]
Animal rights groups, who gained national headlines for the undercover video of a “downer cow” being mistreated at a slaughter plant are trying to follow up with chickens: Mercy for Chickens is an undercover video shot in a California egg house. So far, the response has not been there [...]
Marcia Oddi over at the Indiana Law Blog always has good continuing coverage of how the state of Indiana makes its laws, court decisions and other “public records” available to the public. This is an area that has undergone significant change with the rise of the internet. Today, she [...]
Well, I’ve been out for a week, so let’s catch up:
First off, as Doug Masson says, VOTE!
On the CAFO Front, the PEW Center’s long-awaited report came out last week, the PDF is here: report. Big agriculture has been criticizing the report for months before it [...]
IDEM clears backlog of 263 wastewater permits, nets award from the EPA:
IDEM received a two-gold-star award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of eight states in the nation. IDEM received the award for addressing the historical permit backlog and prioritizing issuing permits. The [...]
The Union of Concerned Scientists just release a report raising issue with the way Congress has streamed billions of dollars into the pockets of big agriculture concerns - leading directly to the bloom of factory farming around the nation. The report, CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of CAFOS, [...]
The Star Press Reports today:
About 600 gallons of hog manure entered Martindale Creek when a hose broke Tuesday as Goldsboro, N.C.-based Maxwell Farms was land applying manure to a farm field.
The incident was reported to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management by Maxwell at 9:17 a.m. Maxwell constructed a [...]
Word was that local anti-CAFO activists and local farmers were going to sit down and come to an agreement on proposed CAFO rules for Randolph County. That was a few years ago, but several CAFO’s later, a moratorium and a retreat from a moratorium and [...]
I generally leave the coverage of new Indiana Appellate decisions in the capable hands of Marcia Oddi over at the Indiana Law Blog, but I wanted to highlight an appeal dealing with a CAFO issue that Marcia covered last Friday. I think you can see [...]
Yesterday, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released a survey of state laws governing factory farming, a survey prepared along with the National Conference of State Legislatures. The survey is the warm-up for the release of the much-anticipated full report from PEW. From the pres release:
The survey [...]
The Pal-Item put up an featured editorial today: A State Role for CAFOs. Not only does the title not make any sense, the opinion piece misses the point of much of the local outcry over CAFO’s. I would boil the errors down to 3 [...]
The Madison Courier has a piece up today from Peggy Vlerebome covering state democratic races, from the presidential campaign to the governor’s race. The piece quotes Jim Schellinger and Jill Long Thompson, the 2 democratic candidates for governor. The piece claims that it is not only the interesting presidential [...]
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear is the title of the May Vanity Fair article by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. The piece tracks the company’s grip on the seed business and its move into the milk business through rBGH.
Continuing it’s focus on [...]
Bill Richmond reports in the Winchester News-Gazette on the Monday evening candidates forum held by the Randolph County Farm Bureau. About 100 people listened to the candidates talk about the big issues, and it looks like CAFO’s are it, for Randolph County. Some quotes from [...]
Alright, enough pigs, now the important stuff:
Indianapolis Colts 2008 Schedule, actually, this page displays all AFC team schedules for 08.
And, for the true fan, here is the Colts schedule in a CSV file - import it into your calendar and you’ll be set for the season: colts_2008.CSV (right [...]
The Pal-Item’s Union County reporter, Pam Tharp, attended a plan commission meeting Monday and found about 100 citizens concerned of the new CAFO dairy going in on US 27:
A standing room-only crowd of about 100 packed into Union County Health Center’s waiting room [...]
The ethical treatment of animals under existing legal frameworks is the narrative of on online symposium up this month from the Michigan Law Review through First Impressions. You can read snips online or download the papers in PDF form.
Here is Neil D. Hamilton, the Dwight D. Opperman Chair [...]
Greenfield republican senator Beverly Gard, a long-time friend of big agriculture, faced off against her primary challenger Terry Michael - a deputy township assessor in Fishers - according to New Castle Courier Times reporter Matt Hrodey. The 2 tussled over many issues, including CAFO’s:
Speaking specifically to Henry [...]
Gitte Laasby at the Gary Post-Tribune says IDEM is sitting on the list of Indiana waterways it rated “impaired” for 2008. The list was due to the US EPA on April 1st, and although IDEM says it submitted the list, the list is [...]
Troubled old-time large scale pork producer, Muncie Sow Unit in Delaware County is facing what might be a final stand off against IDEM.
The problems at the operation have been longstanding. I think we can see 2 things out of this story: [...]
The Pal-Item’s Pam Tharp has coverage of a community meeting held yesterday in Union County. The group heard from clean water advocate Barbara Sha Cox, and expressed their concerns about the announcement of the dairy CAFO going in in the northern part of [...]
The EPA published proposed rules in response to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ Waterkeeper Alliance case. The comment period on these proposed rules ended Monday.
One of the commenters was the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) which started out its comments as follows:
We strongly recommend that [...]
Midwest Environmental Advocates along with FightingBob.com hosted a CAFO conference this past Saturday in Middleton, Wisconsin (Link). The keynote address was delivered by former Texas agriculture commissioner Jim Hightower. Here is his address:
The Pal-Item’s Union County beat reporter, Pam Tharp, reports that Greenmeadow Farms’ VP Tom Caldwell (3861 N Us Highway 27, Liberty, IN) announced at the county commissioners’ meeting that Vreba-Hoff is assisting in the installation of a 2,062 cow CAFO 5 [...]
Why? Let’s ask the director of Randolph EDC, Greg Beumer:
Perception is reality. This moratorium sends a clear signal to the business world that Randolph County is not a friendly place to do business. You and I both know that’s not true, but that is the perception it creates. [...]
Bill Richmond has a report on the 83rd annual Wilson Dinner on this past Saturday. Democratic candidates spoke at the event, including AG candidate Linda Pence - who accused Steve Carter of politicizing the AG’s office, and State Senator Sue Errington, who spoke on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
Of course, what [...]
On Sunday, Marcia Oddi at the Indiana Law Blog had coverage of the editorial in the Evansville Courier Press about Vanderburgh’s move to Doxpop, LLC for posting court case tracking information on the internet.
I think Marcia has the situation summed up very well in the following:
Re the [...]
The comment period on the EPA’s new proposed regulations for CAFO’s expires today. If you want to go and read or leave comments, start here: Regulations.gov.
Last week, I talked about congressman John Dingle’s letter to the EPA questioning the new regulations. You can read [...]
Marcia, over at the Indiana Law Blog has today’s coverage of the Vreba-Hoff takeover of the troubled DeGroot Dairy in Huntington County:
The Environmental Protection Agency released a report in January 2007 that cited a former Vreba-Hoff-owned dairy near Fremont for violations of numerous environmental standards, including allowing [...]
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland signed an emergency order in February requiring milk labeled with the phrase "hormone free" to include a statement to the effect that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has found no significant difference between milk produced with or without the hormone known as rbST (recombinant bovine [...]
Tom Murphy at the Indy Star checks in on the progress of Gov. Daniels’s vision for Renolds, Indiana in today’s Star:
From the outset, the vision for BioTown was ambitious. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and the state Department of Agriculture wanted to create [...]
The Pal-Item is reporting that the Union County area plan commission will meet on APril 14th to discuss CAFO zoning regulations. The Farm Bureau told the county that they needed to get something in place before "controversy erupts," and the county is shopping [...]
Fort Wayne’s Wane TV is reporting that Dutch Dairyman Johannes DeGroot has resolved his longstanding difficulties with IDEM by entering a consent decree:
Under an agreement reached with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), Huntington County dairy owner Johannes DeGroot and DeGroot Dairy, [...]
Marcia Oddi over at the The Indiana Law Blog has a couple of interesting post up now which raise the issue of the power of courts:
First off, a Columbus, Ohio attorney is challenging the Ohio Supreme Court’s move to determine what court records the public should access online:
Cleveland lawyer [...]
Seth Slabaugh, over at the Star Press says the Randolph County plan Commission’s December 27, 2007 meeting, at which it approved a CAFO regulation that permitted CAFO’s on the vast majority of county property pushed the limits on Indiana’s open door law:
Allen Hutchison and [...]
Dave Russell of Brownfields Ag News breaks the big story:
Heavy rain in parts of Indiana is causing some concerns for livestock producers with manure storage lagoons. Ryan Westerfeld, Agricultural Liaison for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) tells Brownfield producers with a [...]
According to Andrew Schneider, correspondent for the the Seattle PI, Michigan’s Rep. John D. Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is wondering how the EPA decided it should take a pass on regulating air emissions from [...]
Well, all those funny helicopters flying around this morning are now explained: Bill Clinton is coming to Richmond tomorrow:
Former President Bill Clinton will make a stop at Richmond Fire Station No. 1 at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday as part of a visit to Indiana for the presidential campaign of his [...]
The Indiana Gov. just signed House Bill 1271 (PDF). For those of you (most, I assume) not following that particular measure, it takes criminal offenders in a certain category and effectively raises their sentences.
How? Currently, in Indiana, a prisoner gets “2 for 1″ credit time, meaning - if they [...]
Progressive journalists Steven Higgs and AMber Kerezman over at The Bloomington Alternative have been traveling around CAFO land of late, and are sending back dispatches. First stop is local CAFO central, Randolph County:
Kathryn Petry and Loretta Miller are Randolph County farm citizens who, [...]
The EPA is seeking comment on additional options for inclusion in the rulemaking to respond to the changes required by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Waterkeeper Alliance et al. v. EPA. This action supplements the June 2006 proposal to revise the NPDES permitting requirements and Effluent Limitations [...]
My father was a state rep in Texas, and has been involved in politics for many years. Growing up in the house of a politician exposed me to the rough and tumble of “retail politics,” but I have stayed so far away from that type of thing for so long, [...]
Randolph commissioners lift CAFO moratorium is the title of the Star Press update this morning. Apparently the commissioners met this morning and, after hearing from Jo0hn Tanner that Maxwell was right and the moratorium should have come through the plan commission before being passed by the commissioners, voted unanimously [...]
Kathryn Petry got a letter posted in today’s Pal-Item:
I received information from an AG liaison of IDEM that there are permits for 44 CAFOs, 228,000 hogs, 100,000 chickens and a dairy wanting to expand in Randolph County and at [...]
Senate Bill 200 cleared the Indiana House yesterday, and is headed to the Senate with the amendments - including Rep. Dvorak’s “good character” etc. amendments.
[...]Alexander maintains innocence is the title of the follow-up piece in the Star Press on Michael Alexander’s arrest:
“I did not conspire to bribe any witness and I never conspired to bribe a witness in my entire career, ” said Alexander, who has practiced law for 33 years. “There is [...]
As I discussed Tuesday, the EPA is ditching plans to regulate CAFO air emissions (Washington Post story). This disclosure comes on the same week that the PEW Commission is set to conduct a congressional briefing on the issue of the impact on public health of [...]
Former Delaware County Prosecuting attorney, Michael J. Alexander, who now apparently does criminal law, was arrested yesterday at his office by county and federal agents. He is accused of witness tampering, bribery and/or conspiracy for these offenses - The Star Press says he was charged with bribery as [...]
Rep. Dvorak’s amendment to Senate Bill 200 passed yesterday on a narrow, party-line, vote:
Amendment 2 (Dvorak), prevailed; Roll Call 235: Yeas 49, Nays 47[...]
Well, it looks like the EPA is ready to look the other way on that whole nasty air business when it comes to CAFO’s:
Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop requirements that factory farms report their [...]
Maxwell vs Randolph County Update:
Farmers Aaron Chalfant, Gary Foulke and Greg Sickels all raise pigs for Maxwell Foods, and last month they filed improvement location permits a week after the board of commissioners approved a moratorium. The moratorium blocks all CAFO and confined feeding operation [...]
The Indiana Court of Appeals issued a decision today on Indiana’s Grandparent Visitation Statute (IC 31-17-5-1, etc). It is an interesting decision that pits the whole “grandparent’s rights” issue against a parent’s constitutional right to determine things for their kids.
The decision is Christi J. Hoeing vs. Jean I. Williams, [...]
Attorney for Randolph County, John Tanner, is not commenting on the lawsuit filed by Maxwell, Inc. against the county. The county has yet to formally answer the lawsuit, and Tanner cited the pending litigation as the reason he could not further elaborate on the issue of the [...]
The good milk update: Masson’s Blog has coverage of Senate Bill 219 :
It requires state and local government to provide for reasonable paid breaks for an employee to express breast milk for the employee’s infant child; to make [...]
This one is sort of obvious. Humane Society runs an undercover camera into a slaughterhouse and captures a video allegedly showing cows being abused. What is surprising is that the stolen video resulted in the local prosecutor charging a manager with felony animal cruelty, and now, how prompted the USDA [...]
Tim Evans has a lengthy article up on the Indy Star today on the calls for Indiana to adopt some type of independent complaint process for child in need of services cases following the deaths of children under DCS supervision: Deaths of kids raise oversight questions.
The idea [...]
Well, rural Randolph County resident Allen Hutchison wants to know why several dozen starlings rained down on his property. It appears they were poisoned, and the question becomes who and how:
Starlings are a nuisance to feedlots. They not only consume the feed but contaminate the feed and [...]
As I mentioned on Sunday (over here), Randolph County was sued by Maxwell Foods last week. The suit was an action for a declaratory judgment, seeking to invalidate the county commissioners’ CAFO moratorium. Yesterday, the sitting judge of the Randolph County Circuit court recused [...]
Three Randolph County farmers who were turned down for building permits under Randolph County’s CAFO moratorium have sued the county, along with North Carolina super hogs producer, Maxwell Foods.
There is a piece in today’s Pal-Item by Gannett wire writer Joy Leiker: County [...]
Keeping the price of pot in Pittsburgh nice and high:
Police recovered almost 15 pounds of marijuana Tuesday afternoon that they said had a street value of $37,500 after stopping a Pennsylvania man for what they said was unsafe lane movement. A vehicle driven by Shawn Wormack, 34, of New [...]
Bob Oliver, the attorney representing Randolph County’s area planning commission claims the county commissioners violated the law in imposing a moratorium on CAFO’s:
In a letter between attorneys, Oliver asked John Tanner, who represents the board of commissioners, “[by] what authority the commissioners implemented [...]
Last week, I talked about House Bill 1300, a bill that would have barred companies from advertising their milk products as hormone free. (See Sour Milk?).
Well, that bill was withdrawn in large part due to the groundswell response that reached the sponsors of the bill. Spearheading this effort [...]
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), released a study (Nutrient Delivery to the Gulf of Mexico) which links Indiana (and Kentucky) agriculture to “threatening the economic and ecological health of one of the nation’s largest and most productive fisheries.” The study claims to show that corn and soy [...]
CDC gives name to slaughterhouse illness (IndyStar): The mystery illness plaguing workers in pork processing plants in Indian and Minnesota is now called “progressive inflammatory neuropathy.”
Now investigators are going back to workers at the Minnesota plant over the last 10 years - the time frame when the compressed-air-brain-removal-machine was [...]
Senate Bill 314 - the state-sponsored CAFO lobbying bill made it through the Indiana Senate last week headed to the House: So says the Pal-Item who quotes author Johnny Nugent: “In this ever-changing world, we need to make sure Hoosier farmers and agricultural businesses [...]
In the wake of the recent failure of the CAFO moratorium bill here in Indiana, local water advocate Barbara Sha Cox sent in an opinion piece to the Pal-Item: CAFO slowdown is needed:
There are several legislators who are concerned and have introduced legislation [...]
A grad student from Ball State, up in Muncie decided to take matters into his own hands when the city refused to put in a pedestrian crosswalk on the street in front of his house: He went to Wal-Mart, got some paint and put in in himself. He was arrested [...]
Dunn Center laid off about 10% of its staff last month. The Pal-Item article penned by Michelle Manchir, now in the archives noted:
Twenty-nine employees of Dunn Center Mental Health, Inc. have been laid off, said CEO Kay Whittington on Sunday. Whittington called the “temporary reduction in force” [...]
One for publication:
State of Indiana v. Philip Morris Tobacco Company, et al.:
Plaintiff-Appellant State of Indiana appeals the trial court’s order compelling it to participate in arbitration with the Defendants-Appellees Philip Morris Tobacco Company USA Inc., R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and Lorillard Tobacco Company. We affirm. The [...]
