Panel votes to ease limits on feedlot critics

BOISE – When a 20,000-cow confined animal feeding operation was proposed 300 feet from his house, Dean Dimond wasn’t too worried at first.

“I thought, aw, this isn’t so bad – we got laws to protect us. We’ll get the neighbors together and see what we can do to work it out,” Dimond told a Senate committee Wednesday.

But Dimond soon found out that a 7-year-old state law was being invoked by his county commissioners in Jerome County to keep anyone whose primary home is more than a mile from the project from testifying at the planning and zoning hearing. Even his father, whose farm land is adjacent to the project, was excluded because his home is elsewhere.

“I’m just astounded,” the Eden-area farmer told the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee. “I beg of you to please, please look at expanding that a little bit.”

Though two previous attempts to repeal the one-mile limit law have failed since 2000, the committee voted unanimously Wednesday for SB 1056. The measure would allow anyone with an interest in property affected by a confined animal feeding operation – or CAFO – to testify, regardless of distance to their property.

Backers of the bill said the noise, dust, flies and odor from CAFOs travel more than a mile and affect businesses, property owners and others as well as homeowners.

Sen. David Langhorst, D-Boise, noted that nowhere else in state law are people excluded from testifying before their local governments on any issue the way they are on CAFOs. “I don’t see why we have this carved out in law,” a puzzled Langhorst said.

Dennis Tanikuni, assistant director of public affairs for the Idaho Farm Bureau, urged the committee to kill the bill and keep the limit. When it was first imposed, he said, “some hearings at the time were dominated by individuals from outside the area. We think the one-mile radius ensures local control of the proceedings.”

The law allows local county commissioners to waive the limit if they choose, he noted.

Lloyd Knight, executive director of the Idaho Cattle Association, said, “there are those that would like to travel to every CAFO hearing that they could and oppose CAFOs because they’re CAFOs.”

Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, the bill’s sponsor, said he grew up not far from Dimond’s farm. “Those people are not liberals from out of town, they’re not traveling great distances. … They’re neighbors, and they’ve been excluded. And if you check your gut, you know instinctively that that isn’t right.”

The committee agreed. Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, said he voted against a 2005 bill to eliminate the one-mile limit, but “I’m gonna have to support this.” He said, “The dairies and the cattle industry in this state have nothing to apologize for. They’re part of what Idaho is all about.”

Stennett said his bill is a compromise, because it removes the one-mile limit but still doesn’t allow people from out of the area with no local property interest to testify. “This is for affected people,” he said.

He noted that the 2005 bill, which just removed the limit, cleared the same committee by just one vote and then died on a tied, 17-17, vote in the full Senate. “I think we will get it out of the Senate this time,” he said. “Whether we get it out of the House remains to be seen.”

Stennett said the original 2000 legislation was part of a negotiated bill that addressed other issues, and debate at that time didn’t focus on the one-mile rule.

Knight said both the Idaho Cattle Association and the Idaho Food Producers, of which he is president, oppose SB 1056.