In 10 years, I never felt like David Gomberg ever lied to me.
In his first month in office, I feel like Cyrus Javadi is lying to me already. He leads off his "Inside the Capitol" e-mail with dire warnings HB2667 and its perils to family farms. He never says what the bill proposes. He just wants us to know it's bad.
It turns out the bill is only about a page long and it directs the state environmental and agriculture departments to not license new "industrial confined animal feeding operations" and to also not allow enlarging existing operations.
About half of the page is devoted to explaining just what a "industrial confined animal feeding operations" is. It turns out it's 2,500 dairy cows or 3,500 cattle, 40,000 sheep, etc. Those don't sound like family operations to me.
I wondered about why the state would want to limit these massive operations.
It turns out that last June, Morrow county, Oregon was forced to declare a state of emergency and has started distributing bottled water because high levels of nitrate contamination in ground water has made it unsafe to drink water from wells were once safe. Morrow county has multiple "industrial confined animal feeding operations".
I find it very odd that Cyrus Javadi opposes HB2667, but familyfarms.org is very much in favor of HB2667. I think HB2667 is a prudent step to keep Oregon from becoming a dumpster for out-of-state entities.
Jim Heffernan
3345 Nielsen Rd.
Tillamook, OR, 97141
503-842-2935