Group questions Iowa factory farm scoring system

Close to a half-dozen Iowa counties in the past several months have taken stances against factory-farm projects, with many calling for a review of the industry's main regulatory system - the master matrix.

Des Moines-based Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement has scheduled a tour of community meetings across Iowa to gather public comment on the matrix, a scoring system used by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to evaluate the siting of permitted confinement feeding operations.

Created in 2002 by a bipartisan committee, the master matrix scores producers on efforts made to reduce a confinement's effect on neighbors and the environment. Producers must score at least 50 percent of the total score and at least 25 percent in each of three subcategories - air, water and community impacts - to pass the master matrix.

Erica Blair, CCI community organizer, said the hope is to begin the process of updating the now decade-and-a-half-old regulatory system.

'For years and years, we've heard from our members that the master matrix doesn't go far enough, it doesn't do enough to protect the environment or people who live around factory farms,” Blair said.

'This is something that's been on the radar for some time, that the master matrix needs to be fixed.”

A bill proposing a full review of the master matrix failed to gain traction this session.

Sen. David Johnson, I-Ocheyedan, a member of that committee that created the matrix, agrees the system is in need of review.

Johnson proposed a bill this session that would have created a committee to conduct a full review of the matrix process to identify potential changes. His bill failed to survive the legislative funnel.

'I would suggest that, and I believe people living in rural Iowa would suggest this as well, that this law should be revisited. It's been 15 years,” Johnson said. 'Having been directly involved in that, I think it's my responsibility to propose that we do that again.”

Johnson said one concern of the matrix is it applies to confinements proposing at least 1,250 hogs. However, the matrix process allows corporations to scale back proposals so they fall beneath the 2,500-hog threshold for requiring a construction permit and making up the difference through multiple proposals from associates.

'You can skirt the rules, it is happening,” Johnson said.

In addition to neighbors' concerns, if a proposal meets the matrix scoring rules, area governments have little recourse. So members of CCI have called for more local control on the matter.

'Every single industry is regulated and we think with agriculture, it's a huge industry and it should be regulated just like any industry should be,” Blair said.

Meanwhile, some Iowa counties, including Allamakee and Winneshiek, have responded to such confinements by passing local resolutions asking the DNR to suspend the issuance of livestock confinement construction permits until the Legislature adopts new rules governing their siting.

Floyd County has passed a similar resolution, and late last year officials in Webster and Pocahontas counties asked Iowa lawmakers for a moratorium on factory farm construction until more local control provisions were added to the process.

Here is a schedule of CCI master matrix community meetings:

' 6:30-8 p.m., Wednesday, March 15, Hotel Greenfield, 110 E. Iowa St., Greenfield

' 6:30-8 p.m., March 21, Lohrville Public Library, 609 Second Ave., Lohrville

' 6-7:30 p.m., March 30, Ames Public Library, PEO Room, 515 Douglas Ave., Ames

' 6:30-8 p.m., April 4, Solon Public Library, 320 W. Main St., Solon

' 9:30-11 a.m., April 8, Le Mars Public Library, 46 First St. S.W., Le Mars

l Comments: (319) 339-3175; mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com