PERDUE, Sask. – Eight men sat in the hog hot seat last week as well-prepared opponents of a large hog development in this small central Saskatchewan town grilled them for nearly four hours.
The public meeting called by a group of citizens drew more than 60 rural residents and a panel of local project proponents, representatives of Heartland Livestock and government officials. A simultaneous secret ballot brought out 174 people from the community of 700, to indicate whether large commercial hog barns should be built in the municipality and if a full environmental impact assessment should be done before the project is approved.
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The vote was not sanctioned by the rural municipality or the town of Perdue and is not binding. Votes tallied 34 in favor of the barns being built, 140 opposed and 148 wanted a full environmental impact study prior to construction.
Starting from rural council meetings held in August, discontent rose like the odor that is feared from the 2,400-sow multi-barn farrow-to-finish hog facility to be located near Perdue, Sask. Opponents of the project also are worried about ground water pollution.
Despite assurances from Heartland Livestock and a local partner, Bear Hills Pork Producers, that all the necessary steps will be taken to control both problems, resident Jim Scharf is not convinced.
“They admit this is a very sensitive soil area on which to build barns like these, yet they plan on going ahead anyway,” said Scharf.
Les Henry is a soils consultant hired by Bear Hills to analyze the proposed site.
“Money spent on an environmental impact assessment would be better spent on making sure the lagoons don’t leak… . Little more is going to be found in an EIA than we already know and it will only push costs higher and delay the project,” he said.
Betty Hamm, a local farmer and RM councillor, said promises by the project’s builders aren’t enough.
“If this goes ahead and there are problems down the line with a contaminated aquifer they say they will be responsible, but how do you clean that up? You don’t. I want a community that will be safe for my kids when they’re my age,” she said.
Questions from a dozen residents during the meeting ranged from the technical specifications of an effluent lagoon liner to the involvement of the province in approval of large commercial livestock facilities.
Shannon Storey, a farmer living on the edge of the aquifer over which the Bear Hills barns will be built, said: “It doesn’t seem right that the province is promoting hog operations like this, protecting them with the Agricultural Operations Act, which was intended to protect your average farmer, not industrial agriculture, regulating them with agriculture department rather than environment and supplying the breeding stock through their involvement in National Pig Development. I think the province might be a little too close to the situation.”
Lewis Elkhart, a farmer living near one of the proposed barn sites, said: “The province is in a conflict of interest. Plain and simple. Berny Wiens (local MLA) even came out to try and smooth things over with us.”
Questions for the panel also focused on whether the commercial barns are a “development” under provincial environment department guidelines. Most farming operations are not considered a development under the act and are not required to provide an environmental impact study to the province and public.
“The act says among other things a development is anything that causes widespread public concern because of potential environmental changes. I guess this vote and meeting are not wide enough for the province,” said Hamm.
John LaClare, of Heartland Livestock, one of the panelists at the meeting, said: “We thought we had answered most of the concerns of the community early on in the process. One always hopes the whole community will be behind you in this sort of project and I think the silent majority is behind us now… We’re waiting for the province to give their approval and then we hope to proceed with the project.
“We learn something new each time we do this sort of thing… . I think we can always improve our communication with the public and in the future we’ll have the experience in Perdue to draw on,” LaClare said.
