About 150 people attended the first day of a three-day appeal hearing on an 80,000-hog development proposed for Hardisty, Alta.
Last month the development officer for the County of Flagstaff granted a development permit to Taiwan Sugar to build a $41.2 million hog operation south of the community.
On Oct. 6, a five-member appeal board heard the first of a series of briefs both for and against the development.
The County of Flagstaff Family Farm Promotional Society, which opposes the development, was granted a delay for its presentation until Oct. 19 in Hardisty and Oct. 20 in Killam.
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Nine briefs in support of the development and four opposed were heard during the hearings’ first day.
Satisfied employee
Marci Kendall, 16, a Grade 11 student from Sedgewick, Alta., told the hearing she has enjoyed working in a hog barn for the past nine months.
“I have had the time of my life working in the barn. There is nothing else that I like more than sitting in the pen with the newly weaned pigs,” said Kendall, who lives near one of the proposed barns.
Clint Sutter, 24, who lives five kilometres from one of the proposed barns, said there’s a well-organized opposition to the barn, but few people willing to publicly support the development.
“It’s time the silent majority started to speak up,” said Sutter, a full-time grain and cattle producer from Hardisty.
Welcome employment
Sutter said he supports the barns for the economic opportunities they will bring to the community.
They may even be a place where beginning farmers can work to bring in needed cash, he added.
Most of the people opposed to the barn will make their presentations later, said Lori Goodrich, of Hardisty.
“Everyone controlled themselves very well. On the 19th and 20th, I imagine that’s when the emotions will run high.”
Lana Love, with the County of Flagstaff Family Farm Promotional Society, said the hog barn has split the community in two.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. It’s consumed us,” she said.
“It’s hard to go into a store where you know the owner supports the barn.
“You try not to let it affect you, but it does.”
