Fearing state and federal regulations are inadequate to protect groundwater, Norton County commissioners are poised to implement their own stricter rules on confined animal feeding operations in a move carefully watched by other counties around the state.
The northwest Kansas county is taking public comments on the proposed regulations through the end of January, and will likely make a decision next month, said county commissioner John Miller.
"What we are concerned about is making sure 10 years from now we have enough water to drink in this county, and you can drink it without having to treat it," he said.
After watching moratoriums against mega hog farms fail in Wallace County, Norton officials hired their own legal and scientific experts to draft proposed regulation they expect to survive legal challenges, Miller said. The work took two years and will cost more than $35,000 when completed, he said.
Suggested measures
The result is a set of rules that would increase separation distances between confined animal feeding operations and residents and require a top on waste lagoons designed to control odor. The rules also call for more water and soil testing.
"We are not saying we don't want them," Miller said of the confined livestock operations.
But Mike Jensen, executive vice president for the Kansas Pork Producers Council, said the retroactive regulations would drive hog producers out of business in Norton County.
"Existing producers would have to go back and install a number of measures that are not scientifically based," he said. "It is strictly based on emotions that have been stirred up."
The proposed regulations would raise the environmental cost of producing hogs in Norton County to 20 percent, Jensen said.
Among the experts the county hired to help draft the rules is Craig Volland, president of Spectrum Technologists of Kansas City, Kan. His report shows 16 percent of the samples from the county's wells showed nitrate levels above those allowable for drinking water, and 46 percent of the samples had nitrate levels showing impacts from development.
Inadequate regulations
Miller said the state's one-size-fits-all regulations are not adequate, and state regulators don't have the staff needed to monitor the farms.
Norton County farmers John and Ada Arford have been fighting the mega hog operations for years and organized Citizens Opposed to Factory Farms.
A hog facility was recently established just 2 miles from their house, and the stench from it is almost unbearable, the couple said. There is barely enough water in the area for a house well and the nitrate levels were already near the critical levels for drinkable water even before the hog farm went in, John Arford said.
He said the proposed regulations are the best residents can hope for, given the limitations in state law.
Until 1997, few swine were being raised in the county, according to Volland's report. Today, there are seven medium-to-large hog facilities, and plans are under way to build two more 5,000-sow complexes north of Almena.
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