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Crowd speaks out against factory hog farm in Adair County

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July 12th, 2011 by Ric Hanson

A crowd of a little more than 40 people attended Monday night’s public hearing in Greenfield pertaining to the construction of a large hog confinement operation in Adair County. Auditor Mindy Schaefer says the meeting went “very well.”She says 15 people signed-up prior to the hearing to speak, and each said they were opposed to the factory farm.

Eric Taylor has applied for a permit to construct a 2,480 head hog confinement feeding facility in Adair County’s Richland Township. Past history has shown emotions can run high in opposition to factory farms, but Schaefer said those who spoke stuck to the time limit, and were very respectful of the rules.

She says they were given three-minutes to speak. Most took less than the allotted time, but those who took the full three-minutes were very respectful, and stopped when their time expired.

The Adair County Board of Supervisors are slated to discuss the permit application and, based upon the Master Matrix Scoring and written public comments, forward their recommendation to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. That portion of their meeting takes place at 10:15-a.m., Wednesday.