Outcome of Measure J likely to get a close eye across the country

Animal agriculture industry interests have been active against efforts similar to Measure J, both in California, and other states.

photo credit: John McCracken
John McCraken of Investigate Midwest.

“So John McCracken, you've covered attempts in the Midwest of local governments trying to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs, at the local level,” Said Jacob Resneck. “What have you seen been the ag industry's response?”

“A lot of the times, the ag industry response is litigation or the proposal of litigation,” John McCraken said. “So in Wisconsin, there've been multiple different counties that attempted to put either a moratorium to stop CAFO operations at the county level, or in a specific township; or they proposed operational ordinances at the local level.”

“A lot of the time, the industry response was to tell those townships that if they go ahead and do this, if they put this on the books, they will get sued,” McCracken said. “So it's definitely been something that we've seen across Wisconsin.”

“So it seems like the Sonoma County ballot measure, Measure J, it would push for an outright ban on CAFOs, but you've seen some other kinds of attempts at regulation…putting limits on CAFOs without outlawing them outright; is that correct?” Resneck asked.

“Yeah, in Wisconsin we have a sort of statewide blanket law that prevents things like this from even occurring because of the way that our state law is, we have exceptions for agricultural operations when it comes to zoning,” McCracken said. “So a township can't tell an ag operator, you can't use this land, or you can't be in this section of the county if you're gonna be doing ag or large ag operations or things like that.”

“But what we've seen in Wisconsin is some of these counties and some of these townships have gotten creative and they don't go for the zoning angle, they go for operational [angles],” McCracken said. “So they say, that's fine, you can be here, but if you're gonna be in our county or township, you have to adhere to our operational ordinances, which means that they report how their operations work, what [they do] with waste, what they do with greenhouse gas emissions, methane emissions from animal waste.”

“They basically regulate everything that a large operation is doing and have them adhere to certain sets of rules when it comes to environmental responsibility and greenhouse gas responsibility, and in some cases, like animal welfare responsibility that the county would put in place, but it's all coming from this different angle of operational ordinances,” McCracken said.

“That's really extraordinary you're saying that state lawmakers basically preempt local governments from regulating agricultural operations within their own communities?” Resneck asked.

“Yeah, yep,” McCracken said. “So in Wisconsin, we have the Livestock Siting law, which passed in 2004, and it does just that, where the ag industry was starting to get bigger and the industry was starting to see these sorts of tensions occur. There was a measure put forth and eventually turned to the law that the state is setting the standard of what townships can tell ag operations, big farm operations, what they can do in that county, and the county has to adhere by that state standard.”

“Let me ask you this, if voters in Sonoma County, California were to outlaw CAFOs in their local ag sector, what could you think the knock on effects might be in communities, in even other states?” Resneck asked.

“So in other communities outside of California, we could definitely see just, those communities use the same language, that if passed in Sonoma County, they would try and just tweak it to their local county and try and get a similar ban,” McCracken said. “That's happened before with other measures out of California. I think of Proposition 12 out of California, where pork raised in California now has to adhere to certain standards for animal welfare with how mother pigs are raised in larger gestation crates or larger pens, or just not raised in pens.”

“That has been replicated in other states and other counties outside of California, and the pork industry was very much against that proposition,” McCracken said. “I think we'd see a similar thing that if passed, that [the] ag industry would be concerned that it could show up in their own backyard, be it Wisconsin dairy or Minnesota turkeys or Iowa hogs. We'd see…the industry be concerned that this is gonna show up at the local level.”

"John McCracken, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to KRCB," Resneck said.