Goodhue County's Failure to Require Environmental Review on a Proposed Corporate Turkey Farm to be Challenged in Court by Local Farmers

Neighboring farmers will ask the court to order environmental review

Contact: Ed Gadient, Land Stewardship Project, 507-843-2452
Jim Peters, attorney, 320-763-8458 or 320-760-1292

5/16/02
PINE ISLAND, Minn.—Fourteen farmers and five rural residents will ask a district judge to overturn the Goodhue County Board of Commissioners' decision not to order an environmental assessment worksheet (EAW) on a controversial turkey confinement proposed in Pine Island Township. The proposed turkey facility would be a contract operation for the Jennie-O Turkey Store Company, and would house 35,000 turkeys.

Thirty-eight neighboring farmers and rural residents submitted a petition asking the county to order an EAW. On May 7 the Goodhue County Commissioners denied the petition by a 4 to 1 vote. At their Tuesday, May 21 meeting the Goodhue County Board of Commissioners will vote on whether or not to issue a county conditional use permit for the proposed corporate turkey farm.

"We are asking the County Commissioners to deny the permit or at least hold off on issuing it until a judge can rule on our case," said Ed Gadient, a Land Stewardship Project member and independent hog producer who lives near the proposed site. "Corporate farms like this do nothing for our county and I think the Commissioners should give us farmers a chance to have a judge hear our case before they move forward with the permit."

Chief among the concerns listed in the petition is that the proposed site is prone to flooding. The neighbors submitted pictures of the area under water from a July 1990 rain. The site is about 250 feet from Pine Island Creek.

"This is a bad site for a large corporate style farm," said Gadient. "Farmers who have lived nearby their whole life know this site floods. We even submitted pictures that show the area under water."

The group is being represented by attorney Jim Peters of the law firm of Peters and Peters, PLC. Peters and Peters has worked with Land Stewardship Project farmer-members from around the state on environmental review challenges involving large feedlots. Peters and Peters successfully argued cases in Fillmore, Pope, Waseca and Lac Qui Parle Counties, resulting in court ordered environmental reviews of large feedlots that posed risks to the environment.

"This case is very similar to the case in Lac Qui Parle County, where the District Court ordered environmental review despite the county's refusal," said Peters. "The judge in that case ruled that when neighbors bring legitimate concerns to the county then there should be an EAW, which is not optional. Certainly pictures of the proposed area under water raise legitimate concerns."

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