Category Archives: analysis

A thousand animal units. The feds call it a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO.) That means 2,500 pigs over 55 pounds or 10,000 pigs under 55 pounds. 1,000 head of cattle or 700 dairy cows. 55,000 turkeys. All on one farm.

The feds used to require CAFOs to get a permit under the National Discharge Pollution Elimination System (NDPES). The oversized feedlot operations had to describe their plans – for manure management, for air emissions and odor management, for emergencies, for disposing of dead animals, for regular operations.  The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency administers the NPDES application and permit program.

In 2008, the Bush administration changed the rules, said no permit was needed, so long as the big farms don’t intend to discharge animal waste into the water system. With a thousand animal units all eating and pooping and peeing in the strictly confined area of a factory farm, intention seems like a strange standard to use. If you live near one of these CAFOs, careful plans for manure management and for air emissions and odor management mean more than good intentions.

Minnesota rules stayed the same, still requiring the giant farms to show their plans and get permits. Now State Rep. Al Juhnke (D-Willmar) and State Sen. Steve Dille (R-Dassel) have introduced legislation to weaken Minnesota’s standards.

The Land Stewardship Project points out that feedlots make up only four percent of the total farms in Minnesota, but pose a large pollution threat because of their multi-million gallon liquid manure lagoons. The Land Stewardship Project opposes the Juhnke-Dille legislation.

I talked to Jim Falk, a fifth generation family farmer in Swift County, at the Land Stewardship Family Farm Breakfast on March 2. Falk said he agrees with the Land Stewardship Project position on NPDES. “Permits provide some parameters that make certain people are playing by the rules and that they are good actors,” Falk said, adding that changing the rules would make it harder to enforce compliance with management practices.

Falk cited the ValAdCo hog operation near Renville and the notorious Excel Dairy in Marshall County as examples showing that larger operators have the potential for larger problems. The Minnesota Health Department found serious air pollution and public health concerns at ValAdCo in 2002 and at Excel Dairy in 2008.

Falk talked about the need to protect Minnesota’s water. “Until we fully understand how we are going to address the problems with our water,” he said, “it would be shortsighted to loosen our standards.

The federal action to lower standards for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations makes it possible for Minnesota to lower its standards as well. It’s possible – but not necessary and not smart.

We don’t need lower standards. Ask the people who lived near ValAdCo and, as reported by MPR, “said the fumes from the lagoons were a health threat and made the area practically unlivable.” Ask the people who lived near Excel Dairy, and were told by the Minnesota Department of Health to evacuate their homes when MDH concluded that “Excel Dairy is a public health hazard.”

If you think Minnesota should keep on regulating the CAFOs, check out the Land Stewardship Project’s call to action – and call your legislator.

House File 2659 is online at: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/revisor/pages/search_status/status_detail.php?b=House&f=HF2659&ssn=0&y=2009

Senate File 2734 is online at: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/revisor/pages/search_status/status_detail.php?b=Senate&f=SF2734&ssn=0&y=0&ls=86

Arbitration is a low-cost, fair way of settling disputes without involving lawyers and coruts, right? Wrong, according to an NPR report last week. An analysis of 34,000 California cases showed consumers losing 94% of the time. The National Arbitration Forum (NAF), a large arbitration firm, says the number is too high, but that corporations are likely to win most of the time because they won’t go to arbitration unless they have a good case. Consumers, apparently, are too stupid to understand when they have a bad case. Or maybe, since consumers have such deep pockets, they simply don’t care that they are wasting time and money on arbitration.

Arbitration, mediation, conflict resolution – they all sound like ways to minimize conflict and get results that are fair and better for both parties. That’s not what happens. In the real world, power and wealth too often tip the scales. A Harvard law professor reports that her part-time arbitration career with NAF ended after her 20 cases. On the first 19, she ruled for the company. On the twentieth, she awarded the consumer $20,000. She never got assigned another case.

Why does this matter? NPR says, “If you use credit cards, have a cell phone contract, bought a house from a builder or put your mother or father in a nursing home, you have very likely signed away your right to be heard in court if there’s a problem.” Arbitration clauses are in the fine print of many, perhaps most, consumer contracts. Employment contracts often have arbitration clauses, too.

As a former attorney, I have no illusions about the difficulty of using the court system — costs a lot, takes a long time, and there’s a huge advantage for the party who has more money for lawyers and court costs, etc. But arbitration is clearly no panacea, and arbitration clauses that forbid you from going to court are bad policy.

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold has introduced the Arbitration Fairness Act, which would prohibit pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts. The legislation would not prevent or prohibit arbitration, but it would give consumers the right to go to court instead of submitting to a privatized justice system.

What with bank bailouts and automobile bankruptcies and all that, it’s flying below most people’s radar. Might be worth a call to your congressional rep, to let them know you think they should take it seriously.

For more info, see Fair Arbitration NOW, Houston law professor Richard M. Alderman, the National Employment Lawyers Association