Farmers and Rural Residents Will Ask Judge to Order Environmental Review on Corporate Turkey Farm Proposed for Goodhue County

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

6/27/02
RED WING, Minn.—Fourteen farmers and five rural residents will ask a District Court Judge to overturn a Goodhue County Board of Commissioners decision and order an environmental assessment worksheet (EAW) on a controversial turkey confinement proposed for Pine Island Township. The case goes before the District Court on July 1, beginning at 9:00 a.m. in the Justice Center, 454 West Sixth St., Red Wing.

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.

"Corporate farms are moving into risky areas where family farmers would never consider," said Ed Gadient, a Land Stewardship Project member and independent hog producer who lives near the proposed site. "Minnesota's Commissioner of Agriculture Gene Hugoson has pushed for more and more large-scale corporate style farms while doing nothing for independent producers and the rural environment."

Commissioner Hugoson is Chair of the Environmental Quality Board (EQB), which is responsible for overseeing the environmental review process. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA), under his direction, has been an active opponent of environmental review of large feedlots, seeing such review as an obstacle to expanding industrial scale livestock facilities in Minnesota. MDA staff routinely testifies on behalf of the proposers of large animal confinements despite environmental concerns voiced by neighboring family farmers and rural residents.

Chief among the concerns listed in the Goodhue County 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 has successfully argued cases in Fillmore, Pope, Waseca and Lac qui Parle Counties, resulting in court ordered environmental review 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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