Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

Enormous concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are targeting Missouri as "the next Iowa” where there are currently over 10,000 CAFOs damaging human and environmental health while generating millions of dollars in profits. Over the past few years, Missouri legislators have targeted laws regulating CAFOs and their permitting, removing many of the previous limits on those human and environmental impacts. Citizens opposed to CAFO siting have little power to stop the onslaught.

Local activist Jeanne Heuser will explain some of the bills in the state legislature right now that are targeting the Missouri Clean Water Law, removing even more CAFO control. Your voice can count in the final days of the legislative session ending May 18. Jeanne Heuser will use the proposed "Tipton East CAFO" to demonstrate how the Missouri rules allow for this open-door CAFO policy.

The location proposed for Tipton East is in southern Cooper County on 25 acres of karst topography in the Moniteau Creek Watershed, which drains into the Missouri River and is home to the federally-listed endangered Topeka Shiner. The approximately five million annual tons of swine waste and composted carcasses will be land applied on approximately 1,100 acres in Cooper and Moniteau Counties.

The Pork Masters CAFO operates off of County Road 235 on April 25, 2017. Farmer Jeff Jones (in story linked below) said this CAFO alone produces more waste than the entire city of Columbia.
Photo copyright Davis Winborne, Columbia Missourian. Used with permission. Click here for June 5, 2017 article.