A series of public-comment meetings are generating material for a comprehensive study on animal agriculture. One issue guaranteed to get attention is odor from animal feedlots. However, the focus of the discussion is shifting. Today's livestock operations are bigger, with hundreds more animals, more waste, and more odor. They're often located closer together on smaller parcels of land.
Regulators now have to pay attention to livestock operations as a group and their impact on an area.
He says the problem is one of definition. Traditionally the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has considered each site separately where the issue of odor is concerned. But many citizens groups say this approach doesn't take into account the impact from all the sites at a feedlot operation. This issue was central in a recent court case involving the group Pope County Mothers and Others Concerned for Health. The group argued that before MPCA officials issued permits to Hancock Pro Pork, a company with 13 feedlot sites, the state should have considered the cumulative impact of the whole operation.