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The Tribune reports today about a battle starting to heat up between residents of Jo Daviess County in Northwest Illinois and a California dairy farmer who just received approval from the state Department of Agriculture to build a "megadairy."
A. J. Bos, who seems to specialize in these ginormous dairy farms, received approval to build a farm housing 4,400 head of milking cattle on 1,450 acres of land in Nora, Illinois. If you think that's ridiculous, you should see what he was asking. Residents in Nora, near Galena, raised concerns about the environmental impact of the dairy farm. Bos plans to dig three manure ponds totaling 30 acres on the site. An engineer for Bos had an answer for those concerns, stating that they plan on installing a "methane digester" which can control the odor of that much cattle. The methane produced by the cattle will also be used to power generators on the farm.
Still, the environmental impact of such a huge farm goes beyond the smell. Residents have rightful concerns about how their drinking water can be affected, not to mention the additional carbon footprint from hauling feed and product to and from the farm.
Image via www.stopthemegadairy.org.
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Well, maybe everyone in that town should stop drinking milk. I am so sick of the pervasive "not in my backyard" mentality in this country. We drink milk, we complain about the price of milk, we enjoy our ice cream and cheese ...where do we think it comes from?
It has got to go somewhere...those people should be grateful for the jobs that dairy will create and stop complaining.
kells is free!
Giant factory farms like these are the agricultural equivalent of Wal-Mart. They may "produce" "jobs", but at the detriment to local and, if this thing is big enough, region-wide farmers who don't have the distribution and production power that these mega-dairies have. Plus there are the massive effects of manure run-off and contamination which is one of the leading causes for health problems in rural areas. The effect of 4,400 cattle to the area over there is going to be enormous.
It could increase to 10,000 if Bos receives approval for the second farm.
Agree with Sean P. If you do your research, this mega dairy can change the dynamics of the whole region: water pollution, influx of workers, political control...We have owned some land at Apple Canyon Lake since 1973. I'd like to retire there. I sincerely doubt if they will take measures to prevent runoff or pollution. Their concern is to turn a profit and that's that.