Editor, Times-Union: Welcome to Utopia, a place where a local farmer wants to build a CAFO. He would never think of trying to impose his business enterprise on unsuspecting neighbors, businesses, churches, schools or nursing homes, by building in close proximity to any of them. IDEM rules would be followed faithfully.
Each self inspection would be written and checked off as if IDEM was looking right over a shoulder. Soil samples would be faithfully and honestly taken from the actual site in question. CAFO owners would look forward to seeing IDEM inspectors as often as once every five years. Of course, it might be a lot longer between inspections because IDEM is very understaffed when it comes to inspectors. These CAFO farmers would make sure that none of the manure sites were next to public ditches, lakes, streams or residential areas.
Now, to the real world.
One of our southern counties had a tragic accident involving a manure tank truck. The roads were so worn down by the constant stream of manure truck traffic that this truck overturned in a bad stretch of road. The driver was killed. The manure spilled from the damaged truck. IDEM was called, on a Friday afternoon, to assess the damage to the surrounding area. IDEM personnel told the caller that they would come and inspect the site of the spill, the following Monday.
IDEM has become a CAFO processing center and it is bogged down in a quagmire of paper work. It may all look good on paper but the real world tells a different story. When CAFOs move in, ordinances follow. These are also facts but some people are in a perpetual state of denial.
