Big Muddy Speaker Series

Presentation by local activist Jeanne Heuser

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

• 7 p.m. presentation (6 p.m. Social Hour)
• Les Bourgeois Vineyards Bistro in Rocheport, MO
• Map and Directions

The Bistro Restaurant is now closed on Tuesday, but the bar will be open. You ARE welcome to come early, bring some food and gather with friends before the presentation. Speaker Series attendees are welcome after 5 p.m. 

Hosted by Missouri River Relief

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. 

Jeanne Heuser moved to her farm in Moniteau County during the Missouri River flood of 1993 and helped found the Missouri River Communities Network the next year. She was a technical information specialist at the USGS Columbia Environmental Resources Center until her retirement in 2009. Throughout her career, Jeanne focused on natural resource conservation and protection by working in local, organic food production, solid and hazardous waste recycling, and Missouri River water quality. With the move of swine CAFOs into Missouri, Jeanne is adding public health to her focus areas because of the serious risk to air and water contamination from these facilities. An avid genealogist, she has put her passion on hold to help fight back against the CAFO assault.

Directions

• 14020 W. Hwy BB, Rocheport, MO
• Take I-70 to the Rocheport, MO, exit (Exit #115). It’s the first exit east of the Missouri River.
• Head north toward Rocheport.
• After about a mile, turn left at the sign for Les Bourgeois Bistro. Follow the signs to the Bistro. You will probably need to park in the lot above the Bistro and walk the trail down.
• The presentations are held in upstairs in the restaurant. The restaurant is no longer open on Tuesdays but the bar is! You are welcome to bring your own food or snacks.