Menard County board says ‘no’ to hog farm

Final decision rests with state department of ag

FARM | Patrick Yeagle

The Menard County Board of Commissioners voted not to recommend approval of a proposed hog farm near Petersburg on Tuesday night. The recommendation is nonbinding, however, and the farm may still be approved by the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

The county board’s decision comes after a contentious eight-hour public hearing last week during which opponents grilled the individuals responsible for the plans. The opponents cite possible harm to public health and tourism.

Tallula, Illinois-based Grigsby Family Farms has asked the Illinois Department of Agriculture for permission to build a 9,300- hog facility west of Petersburg. Randy Leka, a partner with Worrel-Leka Land Services in Jacksonville and the prospective manager of the farm, says the project incorporates several features to alleviate concerns associated with hog farms. Still, he and his partners in the project face an uphill battle in convincing opponents that it won’t destroy the community.

A similar proposal by Grigsby met no opposition in Cass County, just west of the proposed Menard County site.

At the Menard County Board meeting on Tuesday, the board voted on eight “siting criteria” used by the Department of Agriculture to determine whether a proposed project site is appropriate. Two of the criteria received 3-1 down votes by the board, indicating that they don’t believe the criteria have been met by Grigsby’s application. One of the failed criteria deals with the adequacy of odor controls, and the other deals with whether the project is consistent with existing tourism, recreation, economic growth and other efforts. The board’s rejection of the two criteria amounts to a “no” recommendation for the facility because the project application is deemed not to have met all of the regulatory standards.

At a previous hearing held by the Department of Agriculture on Feb. 19, opponents spoke against the project and asked pointed questions of the project organizers and the department until after 2 a.m.

Among the many concerns raised by the citizens group are the potential for increased truck traffic, transfer of swine diseases to humans and negative effects on tourism at Lincoln’s New Salem due to overwhelming manure odor. The farm would be situated about 6.5 miles from New Salem and about 5.5 miles from Petersburg.

Leka and Patrick Maschoff, of the Carlylebased farm company The Maschoffs LLC, attempted to address the group’s concerns on Feb. 19 with a presentation on the project’s design. They said the barns would be built over sealed concrete pits to prevent manure seepage into groundwater, and the manure would be “knifed” into the surrounding farmland as fertilizer instead of being sprayed on fields or stored in an open-air lagoon. The barns would be surrounded on three sides by a windbreak of mature trees, they said, and Grigsby Family Farms owns all of the adjoining land, so the farm would have no close neighbors. Additionally, the pigs would be fed a special diet that includes probiotic bacteria to reduce manure odor, they said. Their presentation was met with skepticism by opponents, however.

One of the biggest complaints by the opponents was their perceived lack of influence on the Department of Agriculture’s approval process. Under state regulations, the department is required to seek a recommendation from the county board on the project, but the county board’s recommendation isn’t binding. That means despite the county board’s “no” vote, the department may still approve the project.

“Even though citizens voiced many valid points on how the (permit) criteria were not met, there was no mention of how these issues would be addressed by the Department of Ag or if the facility owners would be asked to address the deficiencies,” said Molly Hall, an organizer with Menard Citizens for Clean Air and Water. “Basically the citizens voiced their concerns, and that was it. There is no procedure for the public to know if their concerns were heard or addressed.”

Warren Goetsch, the agriculture department’s bureau chief for environmental programs, explained at the Feb. 19 hearing that the board’s recommendation and the public hearing itself are meant to expose weaknesses in a hog farm application so they can be corrected. But Hall says the department has never denied an application for this kind of farm, implying its role is to rubber-stamp permits instead of taking the community’s wishes into account.

Speaking before the county board’s decision, Leka said he believes the project represents a different kind of hog farm than those which might have influenced the opponents’ opinions in the past.

“Some of the impressions people have were drawn many years ago, maybe 20 years ago, and there’s been so many changes in the industry that it’s not really comparing apples to apples,” he said. “We know this industry has changed dramatically for the better.”

Although Leka said he couldn’t offer the opponents guarantees about the issues they raised, he is confident that the project will be safe and won’t affect tourism.

“If it’s a concern to them, it’s a concern to me,” Leka said. “We want to be good neighbors.”