• Draft proposes a reinterpretation of the Right-to-Farm statute to disallow a landowner from bringing a nuisance lawsuit against a neighbor in the agriculture land use category regardless of when they are established. This is an affront to every rural resident who currently does not have impactful ag at their doorstep, but could given the proposed zoning mapping and proposed set backs. You are sacrificing the rights of a very large portion of the community for the rights of a few. Moreover, your interpretation of the Right-to-Farm Act can highly challengeable in court opening taxpayers to footing the bill.
• CAFO set backs are proposed at a minimum and not as recommended by a majority of CAFO working group members. As a member of the CAFO working group mentioned at a recent virtual meeting discussing these proposed regulations, county officials openly misrepresented the group's findings saying that their comments where individually solicited and the resulting set backs where "the middle ground." This is not true. The county is proposing an extreme minimum. Set back from schools, for example, is proposed at 2,000+ feet, while a set back from a child's home can be as small as 150 feet.
• Labeled low impact uses including slaughterhouses, sawmills, meat processing, explosives, and rock crushing could be upgraded to high impact and, hence, require full public review if the operation is deemed large. This is a scary approach that depends on non-specific circumstances and the interpretation of administration WITHOUT public review.
• Most proposed planning tracks remove public input. This entire plan does little more than remove the public from input. It seems that streamlining the process will come at the sacrifice of transparency and fairness. • No follow-up or real oversight of uses "allowed by right" even though they come with specifications. The county is proposing many activities as "allowed by right" and yet there is no REAL way for the county to track and mentor activities. Further, there is no true recourse action given the free-for-all that is sure to result from such a policy.
Kalenak's comments reflect my undestanding of the likely effect of the proposed land use regulations. The proposed CAFO setbacks are inadequate based on standards established in communities with longtime experience with these operations. If they go into effect without opportunity for public input; health, property values, and the desirability of living in our communities will decline. If all setbacks for new CAFOs approximate those delineated for schools, our county will experience better health, prosperity, and harmony.
The lack of public input in the process is going to be problematic and won't solve the issue of controversy and law suits. Lots of work remains to make this a document that works for the people of Delta County!