Dozens of CCI members testify at environmental hearings across Iowa

Join us Thursday, February 21, from 7-8:30pm in Des Moines at the Drake University Sheslow Auditorium for the last environmental hearing in this series

While our citizen lobbyists reshape the way business is done at the statehouse, dozens of CCI members from across Iowa are also taking action at home in their local communities for environmental policy that cracks down on factory farm pollution.Representative Chuck Isenhart (D-Dubuque) and Senator Dick Dearden (D-Des Moines) have held five environmental policy hearings across the state in recent weeks – in Ames, Carroll, Dubuque, Fairfield, and Marion.To date, more than 50 CCI members just like you have attended these hearings and testified for clean air and water initiatives and stronger and more effective public oversight over corporate polluters.  This work is helping to set the issue environment in a way that favors our policy proposals like local control and a fully-funded Department of Natural Resources (DNR).“My home is surrounded by 5,000 corporate hogs all within a half mile of my home,” Lori Nelson, a CCI Action Fund member from Bayard testified at a Carroll Hearing.  “The air pollution they create has greatly diminished our quality of life.  They spread manure right up to our fence line, which is only 100 feet from our deck.  We are then prisoners in our own home for 2-3 weeks until the stench gets down to a more tolerable level.  They also spread the manure across the road from me, right next to a small water way that flows into the Raccoon River.”“We also have to deal with dumpsters overflowing with dead rotting hogs for days.  The smell and flies are unbearable and we are concerned about our health.  My horse has developed a breathing problem to which I believe is due to her environment because I had her scoped and there was nothing physically wrong with her.”“This is not just happening to me, thousands of Iowan’s across the state have similar stories.  Iowa now has 628 polluted waterways & factory farm pollution and other farm runoff is the primary cause. Something needs to be done.  We need solutions that directly attack the problem, solutions like local control.  Local control does not mean 99 sets of rules, one for each county.  We would still have a set of state standards, but it would allow counties to pass ordinances as to where factory farms should not be built.  Local control would allow people to have a say, which is not the case right now.”“We also need stronger permitting standards, increased separation distances, an end to tax breaks for factory farms, and a fully funded DNR.”Help us close out this series of environmental hearings with a bangThe last environmental hearing held by Dearden and Isenhart is scheduled for Thursday, February 26 in Des Moines, from 7-8:30pm at the Sheslow Auditorium at Drake University.  Join us!