Paul Scott comment: "Of hog confinements and floodplain fill"

(The following is a comment by decorahnews.com's Paul Scott):

What do hog confinement operations and floodplain filling permits have in common?  Yes, the correct answer is: "They're both 'regulated' by the Iowa DNR."

Yes, I know it's the state legislature which has set up the system of permits for confined animal feeding operations, but it's instructive to see what has happened with this system.  We now have hog confinement operations basically wherever someone wants them to go, creating huge problems for anyone living out in the country.

Which brings us to permits to fill in part of a floodplain--another area regulated by the Iowa DNR.  And just as with permits for CAFOs, it's a rare floodplain fill permit that gets rejected by the DNR.

But there's one HUGE difference between hog confinements and a proposal to fill in part of a floodplain.  It's that local governments have a say in what gets placed in a floodplain, where local governments are mostly powerless to stop CAFOs.

Local governments could take a lesson from what has happened with confinement operations--how a system that has virtually no limits has created so many problems.

So even though the Iowa DNR has issued a permit to Menard's, that doesn't mean the local government 'has to go along with what the DNR wants,' as I've heard several people say.  Under state legislation which gives local governments local control over zoning issues, the Decorah City Council has the power to do what it thinks best for the community.

So the Menard's application is not the same as a hog confinement operation--the decision still is within the power of the local government to approve or disapprove."