Senate Bill 391 eliminates local control, putting our farms, families, water & air and property rights at risk

Senator Mike Bernskoetter, the new Chair of the Senate Ag Committee, sponsored and is advancing a bill (Senate Bill 391) that will strip Local Control from rural counties, taking away our right to protect our farms, families, water and air, communities and property rights from the negative impacts of corporate-controlled industrial livestock operations.

SB 391 would take away the right of local elected representatives to pass future health ordinances to protect the health and the welfare of independent family farms, rural families and communities and our water and air from absentee and foreign controlled concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). 

Note: Senate Bill 391 is not retroactive, therefore it would not impact any current health ordinances (passed before August 28, 2019).

The sad truth is that Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources will not protect us.

Here are just a few reasons why:

• DNR has no authority to provide oversight of the land application of the millions of gallons of waste that comes from “export only” CAFOs like Pipestone Systems, LLC (a CAFO corporation from Pipestone, MN). So, they can apply the waste right up to property lines, homes, water sources and communities.
• There are ZERO air quality standards for CAFOs with less than 17,500 hogs, 7,000 cattle or 875,000 chicken broilers.
• There are no state setback requirements between CAFOs and populated areas.
• CAFOs no longer have to obtain construction permits at all.
• CAFOs that aren’t “export only” can spread waste 50 feet from property lines and homes and 300 feet from water sources.

This is why it is imperative we protect Local Control; it’s the only way for us to protect ourselves from corporate factory farms.

And CAFOs are targeting Missouri. Pipestone Systems, LLC said in a public meeting that the reason they are targeting Missouri is because we are a “clean state”, i.e we don’t have the animal disease and dirty water problems that plague states with CAFOs.

Please call and email your Senator TODAY by finding them or looking them up here:
https://www.senate.mo.gov/2019-senator-listing-2/
https://www.senate.mo.gov/legislator-lookup/