Supervisors table Floyd County animal confinement resolution

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County supervisors tabled a contentious resolution dealing with safety standards for workers in animal confinement operations Tuesday morning, after two of the supervisors again expressed opposition.

The resolution, proposed previously by Supervisor Mark Kuhn, would set county standards regarding signage, access and monitoring for workers around manure pits for certain new confinement operations.

Kuhn said it is “clearly within our authority” for the county board to set standards, but supervisors Doug Kamm and Linda Tjaden argued the resolution repeats rules that are already established and misleads people into thinking the county is making changes that will have an impact on state regulation of confinement operations.

“I think this resolution is a total waste of time,” Kamm said.

Part of the discussion concerned an opinion issued by Floyd County Assistant Attorney Randall Tilton that the resolution was likely not legal because it was similar to a Worth County ordinance that had been struck down by Iowa courts.

Kuhn said he disagreed with Tilton’s opinion, but ultimately Kuhn moved to table the resolution until the April 11 board meeting.

He said he would be willing to meet with Tilton and others concerned to come up with a resolution that they agreed didn’t violate state law and that “protects our most precious asset — current and future farmers of Floyd County.”

The issue concerns how far local governments can go to regulate confinement operations. Iowa law and the courts have said livestock regulation is the responsibility of the state, with certain limited exceptions.

Large confinement operations in Iowa receive permits through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The state uses a matrix that scores operations on a long list of qualifications, including how they will handle manure.

While county governments can offer recommendations on whether large new confinement operations should be approved, ultimately it is up to the state whether to issue a permit or not. If the operation meets a minimum number of points on the matrix, it is approved.

The proposed Floyd County standards would apply to new operations with 1,000 animal units or more that choose to use a portion of the matrix having to do with worker safety to add to their point total.

Kuhn’s proposal would require that operations falling under the resolution meet three out of four safety requirements.

Those four requirements cover worker compensation coverage, signage regarding dangerous gases, securing access to manure pit openings, and providing wearable monitors for employees to check for hydrogen sulfide gas during agitation and pumping of manure and during training.

Kuhn presented a point-by-point comparison of why he thinks his resolution differs from the overturned Worth County ordinance.

He argued the resolution doesn’t attempt to regulate livestock operations, but rather sets standards for worker safety and allows confinement operations to opt out of the requirements simply by choosing not to use that part of the state matrix.

Kuhn also presented a letter from the director of the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health at the University of Iowa that agreed his resolution demonstrated “a commitment to best practices to ensure worker health and safety.”

The letter, signed by T. Renee Anthony, said the proposed resolution “identifies specific actions that will reduce the risk of death or injury” in confinement operations.

But Kamm and Tjaden remained unconvinced.

“We’re really misleading people into thinking we’re fixing the master matrix, and we’re not,” Kamm said.

He suggested Kuhn, a former state legislator, needs “to go back to the Legislature where you can actually write the law and fix it.”

Tjaden said, “Most of this is already done. The signage is out there. People who do manure handling are all certified. If there are already rules and regulations out there, why do we need this?”

The motion to table the resolution passed unanimously.

Also at the meeting Tuesday morning, the supervisors:

• Agreed to send to the state DNR a complaint by Rudd residents Jeff and Gail Schwartzkopf that an animal confinement building owned by Brandon and Casey Wood violates state code by being too close to an unplugged well.
  Kamm explained that is wasn’t up to the county to determine whether there was a violation, but only to decide whether the allegation, if true, would be a violation of state law, and if so to pass it on to the state for investigation.
• Reviewed a five-year bridge project plan with County Engineer Dusten Rolando. Rolando said he needs to have the plan completed and ready to sign for the state by April 11, and he urged any supervisor who had been receiving complaints about specific bridges to let him know so he could consider them for work in the later years of the plan.
• Approved the contract for Rolando as a shared position with Chickasaw County, including a 2 percent salary increase for fiscal year 2018.
• Approved a contract for pavement marking in the county with Vogel Traffic Services of Orange City for $91,339.
  Responding to a question from Kuhn, Rolando said some of the roads to be re-marked include ones on the route for this summer’s RAGBRAI bicycle ride that will go through Floyd County and spend a night in Charles City, but he didn’t know if they would be painted before RAGBRAI and he wasn’t able to require that they be done by then.