Neighbors opposed to Linn hog confinement turn to billboard and signs

CENTER POINT - Angry neighbors opposed to a proposed large hog confinement operation just east of here are using public ridicule to try to persuade farmer Matt Ditch to change his mind.

The neighbors have chipped in to pay $400 for a billboard and two smaller roadside signs, two in Center Point and one near the Alice United Methodist Church at Central City Road and Alice Road.

One of the neighbors, Regina Behmlander of Center Point, said on Wednesday that the billboard will stay in place for a week and longer if no one else leases it.

"We're here for the fight," said Ron Gibson, of 5026 Alice Rd., who lives about a mile from the Ditch farm. "I don't want to fight, but I want him to be reasonable and not pollute the air and water. I'm hoping he's going to quit this nonsense."

In the end, there may be little short of litigation that will stop Ditch's plan to expand a small nursery building for 300 young hogs into a confinement building to house 4,160 at the family's farm at 4853 West Otter Rd.

Tom McCarthy, a senior environment specialist in the Iowa Department of Natural Resources office in Manchester, Iowa, on Wednesday said the DNR has reviewed Ditch's manure management plan and his construction design plans and McCarthy said he has visited the proposed site. It meets all the required separation distances set out by the DNR, he said.

Neighbors opposed to Ditch's hog confinement plans and two attorneys representing their interests have argued that Ditch is trying to sidestep state rules for confinement operations but saying that he is expanding an existing facility rather than building a new one.

He does not need to submit his plans to a state "master matrix evaluation" if the project is an expansion under a certain size of an existing facility, but he does if it is considered a new facility.

Behmlander said the neighbors now are focused on forcing Ditch to refile his application for a construction permit so he has to face the matrix review.

"Then we'll fight them on the master matrix," she said. She noted that Ditch withdrew an application last fall for a 5,661 hog operation that required the matrix review. Maybe he didn't want to face it, Behmlander said.

Wally Taylor, a Cedar Rapids attorney who specializes in environmental issues, argued at a public hearing in front of the Linn County Board of Supervisors this week that Ditch's dad owns the existing hog nursery, not Ditch, and, as a result, Ditch's proposal for a large facility is a new one that requires more stringent state review.

The DNR's McCarthy said Matt Ditch took ownership of the current building on Wednesday, but the agency is now deciding if that is acceptable or if he had to own it before submitting his construction application.

McCarthy surmised that Ditch could resubmit a new application if the ownership issue goes against him, an exercise that would delay the project for some weeks, McCarthy said.

Otherwise, McCarthy said the DNR's engineer has reviewed the site and has approved it for construction. Ditch plans to live on the property, add trees around the confinement building and employ some sort of odor-control system, the environmental specialist said.

Ditch told the supervisors and neighbors at Monday's public hearing as much.

The supervisors see their role as limited to forwarding comments to the DNR because it has not required the matrix review that the larger proposal had required last fall.

The DNR's McCarthy said Linn County currently has 16 hog confinement facilities, 14 with manure management plans.