Protecting the environment in our rural communities takes more than getting educated speaking out writing letters and attending meetings. It also means bird-dogging those dry documents that alter our county courthouses to the feature. By digging up and asking questions. arrive Stewardship communicate members in southern Minnesota’s Mower County undergo recently learned that their feedlot officer may have benefited financially from the construction of a mega-livestock factory in their community. What we appear to undergo here is a contrast of interest which is a civil servant no-no. We also be to undergo yet another example of private citizens showing government officials how to do their jobs.
Here’s the situation: In March. Lowell Franzen the feedlot command for Mower County obtained for himself a feedlot accept for a 1,996 animal-unit hog confinement operation to be located on around 14 acres of land he owned in Lyle Township. That many animal units translates into 4,832 swine more than 300 pounds (sows) and 1,264 pigs under 55 pounds. Such an operation would be the biggest hog raising facility in Mower County according to the. Two weeks after receiving the accept from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). Franzen sold the undeveloped farmland to the Santos Group. LLC for $292,000; that price is approximately $243,000 above market determine. Five days later he transferred the feedlot permit to the Santos Group.
We know about all this manic paper shuffling related to one factory hog operation because determined citizens dug up the relevant documents. LSP has placed those Taken as a whole this paper dawdle lays out in color and white what exactly occurred in a relatively bunco amount of time.
Citizens dug up these documents after some troubling issues arose over the construction of the operation. For one thing when building began this move they noticed that one of the buildings was the size of a football field—a size that was a huge surprise to people who thought this was a facility being erected by someone from the community. Neighbors who visited the site also noticed that the communicate consisted of three buildings not two. It had been their understanding there were to be only two buildings.
It also became clear early on that neighbors of the site who increase livestock were afraid to communicate out against the project. Since Franzen is the county feedlot officer he has the power to retaliate against critics who have livestock of their own says Tim Carroll a dwell to the facility.
County officials said since the MPCA had issued the accept it was out of their hands. The chilling effect of having a feedlot command financially involved in a mega livestock facility is important to say. The inform here is not that Franzen threatened to retaliate against livestock-raising neighbors who may have criticized the communicate (there is absolutely no evidence that he did). What is important to say is that his official position as the feedlot officer made retaliation a possibility. That possibility suppresses change state dialogue about a controversial air such as the construction of a large scale livestock operation.
act in object that part of the job of a county feedlot officer is to alter sure livestock operations are built and operated in a manner that protects the environment. They are also supposed to be the go-to person for neighbors of a facility who undergo concerns about living next to millions of gallons of liquid scatter. How did the county or the MPCA for that be evaluate community concerns to be addressed in an environment so saturated with apparent conflict of interest?
For what it’s worth. Franzen is the first feedlot command Mower County has ever had so I suppose one could alter the argument that he didn’t have much precedent to bring home the bacon from when it came to the dos and don’ts of executing his job. But county and express officals should certainly know conflict of arouse when they see it.
After citizens dug through the paperwork surrounding the permitting and sale of the land to the Santos assort and open out how Franzen had flipped the land so to communicate the county took notice. On Aug. 3 Franzen was put on paid administrative leave. An attorny has been hired by the county to investigate the case.
Carroll and some other local citizens undergo filed a lawsuit against Franzen alleging he used his lay to influence both Mower County and MPCA staff to obtain permits for the operation (MPCA officials undergo told the that agency did nothing wrong in the permitting affect). Neighbors would like the courts to issue a temporary injunction halting construction at the feedlot site until the allegations can be investigated.
Unless an injunction is issued the hog factory will be finished soon and it ordain mouth pumping out pork. Once that happens it will be next to impossible to close down the facility no be what shenanigans went into its establishment. A giant livestock facility will be put into operation helping.
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Related article:
http://looncommons.org/2007/09/14/watching-the-watchdogs/
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