Here in Hartford we have been trying to stay on top of the water pollution issue.  Our water sample results have been threatening enough for E. coli that our local city and township governments have passed resolutions aimed at the Department of Environmental Quality to do their job in monitoring the environment in a more encompassing way.  The resolution has already received a reaction from the DEQ (I understand it was a top-down decision from the Governor's office to them) to organize a meeting in Hartford to investigate and discuss the issues. We have met with other township and city officials in neighboring municipalities and they also are passing or considering to pass the resolution.

 Anyone who lives around lakes, rivers, ponds, and wetlands knows that they need to be treated with respect to stay healthy.  We expect everyone to honor this commonsense guideline since everyone needs the water.

Yesterday, February 17, we had a meeting with the Department of Agriculture to discuss the issues that their department addresses.  This, in their explanations, had mostly to do with odors.  They believe that just because residents have complained of horrific odors on four out of seven days that that does not break the 95-5 regulation.  This regulation says that the dairy odor cannot impact the surrounding area more than five percent of the time.  Because, in their explanation, the dairy is working within the GAAMPS as set up by the DEQ there is no infraction of the odor stipulation.  This is hard for people who have trouble breathing to understand.  The math and logic are not adding up.  There must be a problem with the GAAMPS.   One of the amazing discoveries we made after the dairy farm was permitted by the DEQ was that the GAAMPS are voluntary.  They are not mandatory as we were given to believe in the public hearing.  The CAFO takes its own samples, tests them, and keeps records on site.  This keeps them out of the Freedom of Information paper trail.

We were lead to believe that the manure had to be injected into the soil or plowed under.  This has been a difficult issue with many of the neighbors because the manure is left for days in thick layers for the passersby to view and inhale.  It has been found to be in the roads for drivers to drive through to get to their destination.  Now, we see every indication that the liquid off the manure and cleaning agents is going to be irrigated through a valley irrigation system.  It is going to be sprayed through the air.  This is not acceptable to any of the neighbors.  The statement that we heard repeatedly was that they "were going to be good neighbors and stewards of the land."  Our south side of town has not been the recipient of this intention.

Last fall the flies were out in huge numbers.  People could not go into their own homes without swishing flies out of the doorway repeatedly.  Horn flies and face flies hatch out of the spread manure and carry E. coli with them.  They are not sanitary.

We have had businesses in the area complain that they feel their businesses will be negatively impacted fromt he problems with the water, odors, and flies.  I believe that these are reasonable concerns.

One of the other concerns that is not necessarily polluting but is very costly is the damage to the roads.  Our citizens have paid extra millage for years to have nice roads in the township.  The heavy trucks and equipment used in the dairy operation have torn up roads.  They have been patched and repatched.  Presently, the nice, smooth roads that we worked to pay for in this area of town are history.

The complaints get handed back and forth between the DEQ and Dept. of Agriculture.  Both departments try to make the local citizens feel like they are to blame because they had agricultural zones in their ordinances.  What sense does this make?  Of course, we have agricultural zones in Michigan since we raise a great deal of the nation's fruit and vegetables.  I don't know of anyone who ever dreamed that the industrial CAFOs would move in and take over the land, neighborhoods, and environment.  Local governments should not be expected to guard against problems they don't have and have never anticipated.

Another excuse for the large CAFOs from the government agencies is that the local people do not like large farms starting up.  Hartford township has large farms.  The size has nothing to do with it.  It is the makeup and management of the farm that does matter.  I find it disturbing that our state government agencies allow, make excuses for, and thus promote this type of growth.

We haven't even addressed the tax breaks, subsidies, and other monetary breaks that they receive.

The treatment of the animals in CAFOs is terrible.  In the dairy CAFOs the cows are continually on cement, never out of the barn, and fed supplements to increase milk production.  They burn out after 3-4 years compared to 10-12 years on the traditional dairy farm where the animals are respected.

Anyone who has questions about his kind of enterprise just needs to get on the internet, type in CAFO and read the phenomenal amount of information that comes forth.  It is very difficult to find a positive statement from anyone outside of the dairy or government offices.

Keep in contact with the government officials.  Send letters and more letters.  Numbers matter and the more involved the better.  We seem to be getting more action out of the correspondence and communication with the directors of the agencies than with the regional offices.  Do not let up!

Note: the reason these comments are from "an anonymous neighbor" is because this person has heard that the CAFO is harassing local residents under the Freedom of Information Act and this person does not wish private correspondence to be subjected to such hostile scrutiny.  In point of fact, only elected officials are subject to Freedom of Information Act demands.  Our local elected township officials have, however, already been made unfair targets of such demands by the CAFO -- a CAFO which is itself immune to any reciprocal demands due to legal loopholes.  This in itself should suggest to other communities faced with CAFOs claiming to be "good neighbors" that such claims are PR gimmicks and nothing more.  Although non-elected citizens are safe from such harassment, we completely respect our resident's request for anonymity.  We deplore laws that protect unwanted CAFOs and allow them to subject our own freely chosen officials to such chronic and unpleasant badgering without having to incur any inconvenience themselves.