February 17, 2010

Cassia County Board of Commissioners

County Administrative Office
Courthouse Room #4
1459 Overland Avenue
Burley, ID 83318

RE: Proposed Ordinance Amendment for Title 9, Chapter 10 of Cassia County Code
(proposed poultry ordinance)

Dear Commissioners,

The following comments regarding the proposed poultry ordinance are made on behalf of
the members of Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment (I.C.A.R.E.).

It is evident from the hearing notice that the Commissioners would like for comments to
be tailored as closely as possible to the changes made to the proposed ordinance at the
hearing on Monday, January 11, 2010. The following comments depart from that goal
only in order to address some problems that have riddled the ordinance-writing process
and to provide context for our comments about the changes made at the last hearing.

1. Regarding the ordinance-writing process:

I.C.A.R.E. has reviewed all of the recordings of the Planning and Zoning hearings and
working group meetings on this matter. It is obvious that that the Planning and Zoning
Commissioners did the best they could given their limited knowledge of poultry CAFOs
and the amount of pressure they were under. However, it is also obvious that industry—
Magic Valley Poultry in particular—exerted an undue amount of pressure and even
resorted to intimidation (threats to take their proposal elsewhere) to rush the proposed
ordinance through the writing and hearing process. As a result, there are some real
questions about whether this ordinance change was sufficient to warrant a review of the
comprehensive plan, whether the Commissioners had enough evidence to have
recommended the proposed ordinance to the Board for review (the close 4 to 3 vote
suggests that the Commissioners themselves had some doubts about this), and whether
there was sufficient public involvement in the ordinance-writing process.

Following is an overview of the most notable and disconcerting aspects of the working
group meetings and public hearings on the proposed ordinance. I.C.A.R.E. would
encourage members of the Board to listen to the recordings prior to Monday’s hearing for
themselves. However, as we also realize that the members of the Board are busy people
who may not have time to sit and listen to nearly 15 hours of recordings in the next four
or five days, we have attached the notes we took on these recordings as an appendix to
this document (Appendix A). These notes are not a full transcription, but they are
sufficient to capture the dynamics of the meetings.
During meetings with the commissioners, Magic Valley Poultry admitted that it has had
its business plan in the works for several years. Yet Magic Valley Poultry only
approached the Planning and Zoning Commissioners with a petition to amend the
county’s CAFO ordinance last July. At the July 16, 2009 hearing, several Commissioners
expressed discomfort with so quickly approving changes to the ordinance for an industry
they knew so little about. When Magic Valley Poultry was informed at the end of the
second hearing that the proposed amendments would not work—that, because of the
substantial difference between the nature of the beef and dairy CAFOs the county’s
existing ordinance was developed around and the newly arriving poultry CAFOs, there
would have to be a whole new ordinance added to specifically address poultry CAFOs—
it increased both the pressure and the frequency of deploying its chosen scare tactic
(about investors balking).

Magic Valley Poultry also consistently presented the Commissioners with contradictory
arguments: when confronted with questions and concerns about the company’s larger
project, the company would tell Commissioners not to worry about the scope of the larger
project because all that is needed is a Poultry CAFO Ordinance; when confronted with
concerns about the scale of proposed Poultry CAFOs and asked why the cap for bird
numbers at a single facility need be so high, the company told the Commissioners to
consider the scope of the project and think about all the non-CAFO jobs it would bring.
The Commissioners also expressed concerns that the new Poultry Ordinance would be
too tailored to the needs of this specific project and not appropriate for the county in the
long term—after all, the existing CAFO ordinance would allow up to 1.2 million birds at
a single facility and ensure that the County was not treating poultry CAFOs any
differently than beef or dairy CAFOs. When confronted with these concerns, the
company claimed that poultry CAFOs could be treated in a different manner because
manure management would not be a problem. Of course, this argument was specific to
the plans of their company alone; it did not apply to Hy-Line, which has stated on a
number of occasions that it will land apply, or to any other prospective poultry CAFO.

Magic Valley Poultry presented the Commissioners with different estimates for the
number of birds they would need to be able to house at a single facility at nearly every
meeting, and often those estimates would change several times during the course of a
single meeting. When Magic Valley Poultry presented the Commissioners with a
proposed Poultry CAFO ordinance, it used the county’s existing CAFO ordinance with
only the changes that the industry wanted—primarily changes increasing the cap on the
number of allowable animal units at a single facility. Setbacks from residences and
several other significant aspects of the existing CAFO ordinance remained the same—a
fact seem1ngly undercutting the company’s argument that Poultry CAFOs are
substantially different from beef and dairy CAFOs.

1
I.C.A.R.E. does not dispute the company’s claim that Poultry CAFOs are substantially different from beef
and dairy CAFOs—this is why we believe that setbacks from residences need to be increased (more on this
later)—but we rais
The lack of discussion at the working group meetings about the potential public health
impacts of these facilities, their social impact, and biosecurity are also a cause for
concern. The Commissioners asked a lot of very good questions, but these were limited to
those the Commissioners knew to ask based on the County’s experience with beef and
dairy CAFOs—they were focused on odor, control over the spread of poultry CAFOs
within the county, and the type of jobs the industry would be bringing to the county.
Other groups or officials who might have been able to inform the Commissioners about
the unique impacts of Poultry CAFOs (such as highly pathogenic zoonotic diseases and
antibiotic resistance among farmers and workers) were not invited to the working group
meetings. When the Commissioners asked Magic Valley Poultry to provide copies of
other states’ poultry ordinances so that they might have some form of outside guidance,
the company stated it would provide some ordinances and then failed to produce them at
any of the subsequent meetings or hearings. As such, the Commissioners’ questions about
negative impacts and existing regulatory structures were answered by industry and
industry alone.

It is also clear that there was significant confusion amongst the public about the purpose
of the public hearing held on December 17, 2009, and that this confusion was likely due
to a significant lack of public participation in the ordinance-writing process up to that
point, the lack of transparency (evidenced in the spotty news coverage) of that process,
and misleading statements by industry representatives about that process that were made
to the press. The County did meet the notice requirements outlined in the Local Land Use
Planning Act (Notice of the hearing was posted at the court house November 25th, and
published in the Times-News December 1st; the proposed changes were available to the
public on December 1, 2009). However, as the little coverage given the proposed poultry
ordinance during its writing and statements made by industry representatives to the press
during that period gave the impression the ordinance had already been written, the
public was led to believe that the purpose of the hearing was essentially to approve or
deny Magic Valley Poultry’s particular project as 2pposed to a broad change to the
county’s zoning ordinance that would apply to more than just Magic Valley Poultry.3
This is not to say that Cassia County’s Commissioners are responsible for inadequate
news coverage, but it does indicate a lack of transparency during the ordinance-writing
process as well as a lack of adequate public involvement in that process.

Based on the comments at the hearing, it’s fairly obvious that there was some serious
miscommunication about what the purpose of the hearing was—many of the citizens in
attendance gave testimony that would have been much more relevant at a hearing for
conditional use permit. In fact, the Commissioners noted this fact: in an attempt to clear
2
e the issue in order to point out the kind of mixed messages the Commissioners received from Magic
Valley Poultry.
On September 3rd, the Times-News’s Joshua Palmer reported that “as part of the permit process, the plant
is required to receive county approval under a CAFO ordinance for poultry;” on December 9th Mr. Palmer
wrote that “the facility needs county approval under Cassia County’s new Confined Animal Feeding
Operations ordinance” (my emphasis). See: Palmer, Joshua. “Chicken Processing Plant Delayed During
Permit Process.” Times-News. September 3, 2009. And “Poultry Plant Begins Moving—Again.
3
See: Palmer, Joshua. “Chicken Processing Plant Delayed During Hearing Process,” Times-News,
September 3, 2009; and “Poultry Plant Begins Moving—Again,” Times-News, December 9, 2009. The
articles can be found in their entirety in Appendix B of this doument.
up the public’s confusion, the Commissioners re-read the published hearing notice, but at
that point it was likely too late to affect the testimony (much less turn up all of those
citizens who would have attended had they understood what the purpose of the hearing
actually was). The root cause of this miscommunication was not the phrasing of the
notice sent out by the county, but the rush job the county was bullied into by industry. It
is obvious from the struggle the Commissioners had comprehending the scope and
implications of Magic Valley Poultry’s proposed project that Mega Poultry CAFOs (as
opposed to the 1.2 million bird facilities the existing CAFO ordinance can accommodate)
are not something the County’s existing Planning and Zoning guidance document—the
Cassia County Comprehensive Plan—addresses. As such, the Commissioners should
have revisited the Comprehensive Plan or at the very least held a public meeting to gather
evidence and testimony from Cassia County citizens prior to attempting to formulate a
Mega-poultry CAFO ordinance (which is what the proposed ordinance really is) from
scratch. The Board need only compare the public’s involvement in and reaction to this
process to what it is when changes are made to the existing CAFO ordinance to
understand how deeply flawed this process has been.

The decision to close the hearing rather than hold another was made on a very close vote
of four to three, and there’s even some indication that the commissioners were not fully
informed about the implications of closing the public hearing and recommending the
proposed ordinance to the Board—several were unclear about whether new information
could be brought before the Board for consideration at its hearing, and others were
concerned that closing the hearing would negate the purpose of having taken up a
citizen’s offer to tour a grow house.

I.C.A.R.E. also has some concerns with how the Board proceeded in its January 11th
hearing on this matter. We discussed those concerned in depth in our January 23rd letter
(appendix C), but briefly they are as follows:
• It is clear that the Board had adopted a policy of only accepting changes it
deemed “unsubstantial” prior to the hearing;
• It is evident that the Board had discussed the comments it received prior to the
public hearing and had already come to a consensus about which comments it
would adopt and which it would reject;
• Neither the Board’s discussion about its policy of only accepting “non-
substantial” changes nor its discussion of the comments it received are part of the
official record of these proceedings, yet their consequences are.

2. Regarding the consequences of the ordinance-writing process on the quality

of the proposed ordinance and the County’s ability to deal effectively with
the challenges posed by mega-poultry CAFOs

As a result of the rushed pace and one-sided nature of the ordinance writing process, the
proposed ordinance poses a number of problems for the county. A full list of4the
problems I.C.A.R.E. noted can be found in the comments we submitted to the Board prior
to the January hearing (appendix D). I.C.A.R.E.’s biggest concerns are that the proposed
4
ordinance and existing Comprehensive Plan are inadequately configured to deal with the
inevitable consequences of mega-poultry production—namely the spread of zoonotic
diseases (such as avian and swine flu), the spread of antibiotic resistant disease
(especially MRSA) among poultry CAFO growers, workers, and processing plant
emp5oyees, and the concentration of these and other pathogens as well as heavy metals
(like arsenic) in poultry waste. The proposed ordinance’s existing bio-security zones may
ward off the chance that one grower’s flock will wipe out another’s through the spread of
disease, but the setbacks from poultry CAFO structures to human dwellings do very little
to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistant bacteria from CAFO
birds to CAFO neighbors. Similarly, the County has not asked whether the nutrient
management plans for poultry CAFOs that land-apply their waste will be adequate to deal
with the very real threat of arsenic contamination of soil and ground water. Such
contamination could easily destroy farmers’ ability to use prime Ag land to grow crops
for human consumption, and would inevitably exacerbate the county’s ground water
contamination issues.

It would be a mistake for the county to take industry’s word that these things are dealt
with by existing re6ulatory agencies without bothering to hear from those agencies
directly (which, we should note, it has yet to do). Notably, this would be the same
mistake that several Magic Valley counties made with the dairy industry—failing to
account in advance for what existing regulations do and do not cover, how effective those
regulations are, and whether the counties need or even want to put some buffer or stop-
gap measures into their CAFO ordinances to ensure that the health and well-being of their
citizens and local economies aren’t put in jeopardy by gaping holes in existing regulatory
structures.

3. Regarding the specific changes approved by the Board at its January 11,
2010 hearing.

As stated in our January 23rd letter, with the exception of the changes proposed to 9-10-
6(A)(9), we applaud the changes adopted by the Board. However, we do not feel that the
adopted changes are sufficient to solve the fundamental problems posed by the
ordinance-writing process, and feel strongly that the Board’s discussion of all submitted
comments should have been done on the record. We also feel that the changes proposed
to 9-10-6(A)(9) are sufficient to warrant returning the ordinance to Planning and Zoning
for Review.

Based on the record, there is ample evidence that the Planning and Zoning Commission’s
decision to set the limit for a “Large” poultry CAFO at 1,000 birds was intentional and
deliberate. There is also ample evidence that the decision to apply the four-mile
biosecurity buffer to all such Large poultry CAFOs was similarly intentional and

5
6
ument.

We have appended several articles that tackle these matters to this document for your
review.
deliberate. During the working group meetings there was much discussion among the
Commissioners about the need to distinguish between private citizens who might wish to
raise chickens for their family and those raising poultry for commercial purposes. There
was also a substantial amount of discussion among the Commissioners and between the
Commissioners and industry representatives about how to ensure that poultry CAFOs
would not take over the county. After extensive discussion, the Commissioners decided
that 1,000 birds was a reasonable cut-off point for distinguishing between private citizens
and commercial growers. The Commissioners also expressed their intent to apply the
same set of rules to all commercial growers (operations defined as “Large” poultry
CAFOs with over 1,000 birds) and to set a strict bio-security zone around these facilities.
This particular decision was made based on concerns about the environmental and social
impact that an out-of-control proliferation of large poultry CAFOs would have on the
county.

Importantly, at the very first hearing on July 16, 2009, an industry representative
admitted that poultry facilities with 1,000 animal units (or “16,666 birds”)—which,
under the existing CAFO ordinance would not be considered a CAFO—“still have the
same concerns with disease control, prevention, transmission, that a million bird
facility would have.” In light of this admission, it is impossible to consider the industry’s
request to the Board to whittle down the bio-security zone for facilities with under 50,000
birds to two miles anything less than a self-serving and base attempt to circumvent
precautions that were extensively discussed and deliberately put in place by the Planning
and Zoning Commissioners.

For these reasons, we urge the Board to either reinstate the four-mile radius buffer zone
adopted by the Commissioners or to return the changed ordinance to the Commissioners
for review.

4. Conclusion and suggestions for future action

We understand that the Board may have the same reasons as the Planning and Zoning
Commissioners for wanting to hurry up and finish this process—certainly the prospect of
losing 1500 promised jobs is daunting. But we ask that the Board consider the long-term
health and well-being of the county, as well as the more immediate prospect of shiny new
jobs. Considering, for instance, that no other Idaho county has done as much preparation
work as Cassia, it becomes a lot less likely that Magic Valley Poultry’s threats to
withdraw if they don’t get their ordinance right away are sincere—the company would
have to start from scratch if it chose to do so, and it can be certain that no matter where
the poultry industry goes in Idaho, I.C.A.R.E. will be watching to ensure that the interests
of the public are protected. Also consider how the company’s constant threats may reflect
on its business practices: we would think that Cassia would want to do business with
companies willing to educate and work with county officials and citizens rather than
arrogantly assuming the right to shove something wholly unknown down their throats.
Consider further that if this ordinance is designed properly, the county need not fear
Magic Valley Poultry’s threatened flight. If it is designed and implemented properly, the
county will attract other well-financed proposals that will be equally if not more
beneficial, while simultaneously avoiding the painful and problematic learning curve and
ordinance re-writes that plagued its experience with beef ad dairy CAFOs. It is not the
county’s problem that Magic Valley Poultry did not have its ducks in a row earlier than
July of last year. The Board must remember that this ordinance will shape and affect
more than just the operation of Magic Valley Poultry: it will shape and affect any and all
poultry CAFOs that wish to set up shop in the county.

So far, the County has only heard what industry has been willing to tell it and what a few
officials have had time to investigate on their own. Common sense dictates that these
efforts are simply not sufficient to provide the basis necessary to produce a quality
poultry CAFO ordinance: no business is going to want to cop to its less than flattering
aspects, and no individual encounter with an industry (no matter how ideal) is adequate to
make conclusions about the industry as a whole. Industry may counter that neither the
Commissioners nor the Board, nor the citizens of Cassia county are going to become
experts in the entirety of the poultry industry even given another 6 months; they may be
right, but Cassia County’s officials and citizens need not become full-fledged experts to
write a quality poultry CAFO ordinance—they need only be properly educated about the
outline and function of existing regulatory structures and more clearly informed about the
unique public health and environmental challenges poultry CAFOs pose.

I.C.A.R.E. suggests that the Board mull these matters carefully, and consider that filling
in the blanks of the County’s poultry CAFO education need not take an inordinate
amount of time. We firmly believe that the County needs to formally consider whether its
existing Comprehensive Plan provides guidance for dealing with poultry CAFOs—and,
in particular, fully vertically integrated industries (such as Magic Valley Poultry’s
proposal). While I.C.A.R.E. does not believe that it does, we realize that the County may
decide differently—the problem is that while County officials have clearly struggled with
the scope of these changes, and while those struggles should have prompted a review of
the Comprehensive Plan, they did not: the question was raised obliquely in one of the
early hearings, but not directly addressed.

Once it has reviewed the Comprehensive Plan and made a determination, the County can
proceed with construction of its poultry ordinance and ensure that the public is properly
informed and involved with that process. The County need not start from scratch—the
proposed ordinance in its current form contains a number of excellent provisions that
could and should be maintained—but it should compare and contrast its proposed
ordinance with existing ordinances in states where poultry CAFOs are well established. It
should also consider the economic, environmental, and public health record of the poultry
industry in those states, and think about what its ordinance can do differently to avoid
their pitfalls and mimic their success (if applicable). The county should also ask for
testimony (in the form of a letter or personal appearance) from DEQ, ISDA, EPA and
USDA so that it is clear from the start on what is and is not handled by those entities and
does not find itself or its citizens in the state of confusion it and they have had to go
through with dairy and beef CAFOs.
I.C.A.R.E. feels that these reasonable requests are in the best interest of Cassia County in
both the short and long term. I.C.A.R.E. and its members in Cassia County want the
county to prosper and grow as much as the Planning and Zoning Commissioners and
Board. We just hope that county officials will act based on the lessons provided by the
county’s history with beef and dairy CAFOs—that it will tackle hard questions up front
and, to the exent that it can, plan ahead to ensure that short term growth doesn’t lead to
long-term problems.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Alma Hasse
Executive Director
Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment (I.C.A.R.E.)
PO Box 922
Fruitland, ID 83619
ahasse@idahocares.org
(208) 695-1556

Shavone Hasse
Board Member
Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment (I.C.A.R.E.)
PO Box 922
Fruitland, ID 83619
shasse@idahocares.org
(208) 695-1488
 Appendix A:
Planning and Zoning Commission Poultry Ordinance
Meetings and Hearing Notes
From recordings:

Note: comments in brackets are I.C.A.R.E.’s

Industry representative, 7/16/09 recording “through the comprehensive plan the

county certainly recognizes that agriculture is a significant contributor to the county and
the economic well being of the county, I don’t think we really need to go into that. And
the comprehensive plan really states that the county needs to do what it can to support
agriculture interests in the county. That’s really the basis of this request. To allow an
opportunity for this system to come to the county.”

Regarding biosecurity: “concern for disease control”

“The main issue with biosecurity is that biosecurity particularly for poultry and swine has
a broad effect. If one operation does not employ biosecurity and they have a problem,
they can have a fairly significant impact to their neighbors who may have similar type
operations. The problem we do have though is that there isn’t a standard (no federal
standard).

Essentially a biosecurity plan what are you doing in your operation to control diseases
getting into your farm, what are doing to control diseases getting off the farm, the
administrator also wanted to add in their mortality management—what are you going to
do to manage your mortalities.

Intended to be a general definition. “To minimize the potential for disease transmission
between farms””

The intent here is to make sure that when someone’s coming in with a proposal for a new
hog or poultry farm that they recognize where they are and the people around them—the
other farms that are around them. To recognize what their impacts might be on the
neighbors and know what other things are out there that could impact them. And that
effects—should impact—the design of your facility.

16,666 birds—not a CAFO. Still have the same concerns with disease control,
prevention, transmission, that a million bird facility would have.
Question asked regarding “closeness possibility and that type of stuff” “where do you
draw the line? I don’t see how we can make a recommendation if we have no idea.”

The feds have the National Poultry Improvement Plan, and the state administers that plan.
Any poultry farm in Idaho is required to be on that committee. The state has a control
plan.

Quarantine could be 1 mile, 2 mile, 5 miles. Depends on what it is.

Mr. Beck: with this type of a program, DEQ’s probably got to be involved in a
policement type thing. If you put in biosecurity, and DEQ’s involved, and DEQ says 100
chickens is an animal unit….

Matt: That rule only starts regulating facilities that are 2,000 animal units. 200,000 birds.
Your ordinance is 16,600 birds. They’re going to have to get a CAFO permit in Cassia
County way before they’re going to have to get a DEQ permit.

“No idea how you would mandate and implement it”

Regarding waste: different in form and appearance… at the end of the day, what you
have is not raw manure that is scooped, piled, and applied. By specifically excluding that
product (windrows) think we’ve dealt with that concern”

Question: something different from what our ordinance states in this situation in
particular, if in fact this doesn’t change, if the 2 animal units still equal the acre, can they
ask for a variance based on the technology.

Matt: Pelletelized fertilizer product, and will be marketed as an organic fertilizer. The
only other thing that could fit under this definition would be a thermal process.

Question about the process & time frame.

Matt: fully enclosed process; doesn’t know all the details. Comes in, gets ground, dried,
pelletelized.

Layer facilities feces would fall on the floor and be either scraped or flushed, or high-rise
(a room below where the chickens are).

Broiler facilities: done right on the ground, a cycle; depending, some facilites will go a
couple of cycles and then clean it out.

Question: does the manure ever go outside the facility? I can tell you right now the
concern you’re going to get from everyone in this community is that they don’t want a
bunch of chicken shit everwhere.

Matt: Ideal situation: conveyor belt; we all know that equipment breaks, trucks break..
you have to have another plan. (thus the 48 hours limitation).

Ideally we don’t want litter around the poultry barns for disease control.

Question: is this company in particular going to process the fertilizer?

Matt: we’ll propose that it will go to a facility here in Cassia County that it will go to.
Commissioner Ward: talked about cleaning those buildings between cycles. Can you give
us an idea in days or weeks of what you think a cycle is?

Broilers: 41-days.

Ward: in order to do that do they have them in a pretty confined space?

Matt: there’s square footage requirements that they would have to meet. It’s not that they
can’t move or anything.

Ward: I had the opportunity of being around a 2,000 hen unit.

Matt: requirements for layers are different than broilers.

“processed CAFO waste”: in lieu of minimum au/acre. Third parties: different businesses
with different owners of businesses. Keep those entities separate even though there will
be a relationship there—a contractual relationship.

Question: will they be the sole provider to the third-party?

Matt: the way we’re proposing the design… the way it’s proposed is that each plant—the
processing plant will be designed for a certain capacity of chickens per 40 hour work
week.

Question: if you do that by contract with a third-party, how do you ensure that they don’t
just land apply or compost that waste? That’s the concern is that we would lose…

Commissioner James: the grower of the birds would remove the waste from his building,
it would go into a truck to move it, what form is that in when that transfer’s made? Is it
already dried? And then this third party… The waste doesn’t leave like that. So the
grower loads the waste to take it to the third party that does this. I think what
Administrator Murray’s asking is, how is there any control… I just have a lot of
questions about that, I guess. The third party, what you’re saying, would have to have a
permit so that the county could enforce that.

Timing concerning permits: farm & waste handlers.

Question: how are they going to transport this? (dairy manure on the road). Area
specific? Any time you start transporting that… bedding, especially straw, is going to
fluff into the air. Is there a mandate that you cover it?

Matt: we haven’t discussed that. Those details need to be handled in the conditional use
permits.

A lot less loads (then a dairy) but it’ll be every day.

Whitehead: worried about this 48-hour business. Why can’t it be contained at all times?
Why can’t it be scraped up and put into a building?

Whitehead: basically what you’re saying is there’s no way to contain it.

Matt: 99.9% of the time it’s going to be contained.

Ward: You always have that operator that’s always broke down. Got the excuse about
always being broke down. I’m not sure about not striking that 48-hours.

Matt: we [Magic Valley Poultry] have every intention of being the best neighbors
because it’s a reflection on the industry.

I would assume that the contract would put some burden on this facility to receive the
litter. So I would imagine that they have a contingency plan.

Commissioner: You’re here to ask for specific things, and we’re worried about the
conditional use permit that’s going to come in down the road.

Matt: these language changes only open the door… claims that they’re not going to be
applying to that farm.

Commissioner: you can only transport compost so far.

Matt: We’re going to need to go over 7500 animal units.

Commissioner: If the processing area might be on the East side, let’s use Highway 27, if
this processing facility is going to be on the East side… what difference is it going to
make, because you’re going to be transporting these things... to get an animal density
requirement…We can still keep the animal density there… The initial project is 1500
acres to keep this. You’re transporting this no matter what…

Matt: the difference is that if you require us to own an acre for every two animal units,

Hy-Line North American representative:

Postpone any recommendation to the commissioners and develop a timeline and a
methodology to get the information you need to make an intelligent decision.

Commissioner: The issue you’re asking us for is just for the biosecurity plan or…

Hy-Line: I think that we need to the time to develop biosecurity ordinance, processing,
whatever these two industries have…whatever they need to go forward and do their
operation, that’s the statute we need. (Expansions).

City’s economic guy: “great economic potential.” Starting wages of $15 plus benefits.
We see the potential of a large impact somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000,000
per year. Over 1,000 jobs created. Can’t happen until we facilitate the number of
chickens that need to be grown and processed.

Question: this job issue—is there a way you could put together benefits, impacts on the
community? There’s got to be a way to say how many more schools we’re going to need,
the impact on the hospital, that type of thing.

E-guy: we have those available for you.

Commissioner Garder: With this particular business, you said you’ve been contacted by
several businesses. Do you have an estimation of jobs overall?

Commissioner Primm: Board Member for Magic Valley Poultry; Magic Valley
Development is the holding company.

Education curve in the poultry industry is pretty severe. Was in the dairy business for 11
years. Understand the CAFO problem. “Organic fertilizer”: make more profit and have
more sales.
Totally integrated system: there is no waste that comes out of these facilities. Extremely
expensive, but what makes them profitable is being able to have revenue coming off of
all those waste streams. The impact that this plant will have—we’ll have international
recognition in Burley for this facility and how it’s put together. 14 companies. Nutrient
management planning was developed through the CAFO regulations to be sure that we
didn’t over-contaminate our ground. The new technology develops a way that we don’t
have to worry…In this environment, we’re growing the chickens for the fertilizer. We
make more money on the fertilizer than we do our chickens. Organic farming as you
know has taken off and this product is the required product if you don’t use commercial
fertilizer. End-tailgate or side-dumps. 7 plants in the US using this type of material. Not
reinventing the wheel when it comes to maneuvering the product. 115,000 square foot
plant. About 10,000 tons per hour. Bulk package containers and 50-pound bags. Have to
empty two sheds every day 80-85,000 birds. Time frames are very tight. Move that
material out as quickly as we can: biosecurity, health hazard. Keep all of the sanitation
possible in our environment to remove those products as quickly as possible. ‘You’d
never see a feather on the ground.’ The type of land we’re going to be using in the county
is important—will have to import soy (50% from Brazil). All grains would take as much
as possible locally, but 127 million tons per year imported. What we can use is the bad
lands, because all we need is water. As many scientists working on this project as any
other industry in the world. The dry farm lands that we don’t have to take out of
production is what we’re looking at right now. Pro-Con sheet. The poultry industry has
really elevated itself to be one of the highest impact economically for a community and
lowest impact environmentally. IF people didn’t advertise you would never know where
even to look for these facilities. The impact would be the people coming to work in them
driving back and forth. Need some housing for our management team. The majority of
them will be brought from outside of this region because of their expertise. With a 300
million dollar budget, we can’t afford to spend time to train. 60 apartment buildings for
our workers, 8 condos for our staff, a new pellet manufacturing facility, a daycare, a hotel
and two restaurants, and those are all things that we’ve got started that we’re waiting for
phase 1—we’re waiting to have the processing plant started. We can’t have the
processing plant without having the chickens. Companies like Tyson that are out of room,
looking to grow, they’re going to be looking for wide open spaces to do that. Typically
this environment is perfect for growing chickens. We’ve got all the things to make this
work. Storage is about 75% of the room that we have. Don’t have a smoke stack—a
thermal oxidizer. All of the air in all of the processing plants are 25-30% better than the
DEQ and EPA requirements. Marketing to EU standards. We will be probably a lesser
impact for the square footage that we’ve got right now than any other industry that you
have. The side streams are more profitable than our main stream, which is our chicken
processing products.

Commissioner: farm vs. industrial.

Commissioner: we don’t know what we’re getting into here. It’s my feeling that we need
to table this and gather a whole lot more information that can help us make a rational
decision.

Commissioner: I think you make mistakes when you’re in a hurry.

Commissioner: what number is going to work to make this thing work. You just coming
in here and you’re wanting a broad thing, and I’m not willing to do that.

Why would we even need a CAFO permit? I think Kerry just emphasized that it’s
because it’s an ordinance that’s already with the state. A special use permit that’s specific
to just our needs. We’re not going to land apply.

Commissioner: Let’s decide exactly what they’re asking us for and let’s talk about it. We
obviously have an industry here that doesn’t fit the law we’ve got, so we’ve got to change
the law

Commissioner: but we’ve got to understand why they don’t fit.

Ward: is there anyone here for public comment? I just think we need to close it for the
taking of evidence. I thought we should table it, but it might be tabled longer than we
would want it to be, so…

James: it just looks to me like you guys are way ahead of us, and we aren’t even close to
understand all the things that we need to know about this.

Commissioner: but what about farm vs. industrial? We’re talking about animal units per
acre, and under this situation, there’s not a necessity for acreage.

You’ll have poultry farms that may want to land apply, but then you’re going to have a
facility that doesn’t need to land apply.

Tabled.
8/20/09

Magic Valley poultry: between 1,200 and 1,500 jobs created. Somewhere in the
neighborhood of $190-200 million dollars. Take out of recessionary conditions. Had
several businesses that have contacted the city with things that they had or they’d like to
do that are in support with this location here. General Contractor who is a partner in the
project.

Jim Primm: Construction of facilities. Poultry industry has technologies that keeps birds
alive. These are tried and true systems that you can’t experiment too much. Technical
information that the poultry industry uses for their build-outs. Metal construction inside
and outside with insulation between the two layers (temp has to be within 2 degrees max
& min). Floors are compacted dirt. Bedding material is for the litter to pick up moisture
content. Dirt: clay-type material. Stops 90% of the moisture.

Rick Caldwell—company out of Provo, Utah.

Dirt material is the only thing we can control the bacteria in. Vs. concrete, which is a
natural sponge. (what do they disinfect the dirt with? Is that going to get into the ground
water?)

Question: you’re saying you go in and disinfect the top residue, does that penetrate the
dirt?

Commissioner: I’m still concerned with where this waste goes.

Concrete stem walls.

Question: how long’s the metal going to last?

Life expectancy is 50 years.

Litter is picked up after the birds are gone with a skidsteer, put into a tanker truck and
hauled to the fertilizer plant.

No windows, just ventilation.

Ventilation: the air continually moves in those buildings, have backups with generators.

Commissioner: bringing fresh air in and the other air goes out. If it’s close to a residence,
is that foul? Is that going to be a problem to a close neighbor?

The baffle systems they use in the ventilation helps stop the smell, about 60% of the odor.
A layer of filters that the air has to go through before it goes out side. Those are changed
every time the birds are changed.
Commissioner: what type of lighting do those buildings have?

Would be lit all night long. Outside security light at each door area.

Commissioner: do I hear you saying that those chickens are under light pretty close to 24
hours a day, is that what you’re saying?

Yes.

Commissioner: do these ventilator deals keep that does from getting outside the building?

Yes. Also have humidifiers.

Commissioner: what type of watering system? Do they ever go haywire and get the
building wet?

Bruce Dean: the drinking system is a nipple drinking system. 1 about every 4 feet.
Produce one drop of water at a time. There’s no free-flowing water. 5 or 6 cameras in
each building. The floors are not going to get wet. I’ve never seen the moisture within
about 2 inches of their bedding.

Each building will produce about 85 ton of litter. About three semi-loads.

Have back-up inside storage for about ten days of litter. The only time it’ll be outside is
we can’t get the trucks inside the barn. Pelletizer will run about 12 ton of pellets an hour.
800 pounds to the acre on potatoes.

Commissioner: Did you supplement, did it decrease the cost of your other fertilizer?

I did, we put it on half of the field and we did the other half commercial. Best
micronutrients.

Commissioner Whitehead: 48-hour time period.

Commissioner: are they being fed hormones to reach that?

No, they’re just hybrid birds. We don’t do any hormones. Every day or two we do very
few antibiotics in case we need to.

Commissioner: Is there any concern about that being put out in the other products you’re
making from this?

Tyson has 50 plants East of the Mississippi running this.

Commissioner: there’s been some indication that maybe some of the obesity is occurring
because of hormones and that sort of thing.

Corn, Soybeans, and micronutrients. About 18% wheat from this area.
Commissioner: are there any plants in the northwest?

Oregon as well as California—foster farms.

Vertically integrated to where we can control from our hatchery all the way to our
processing. We may have some contract growers later, but up front we’ll process
everything. Own breed barn, feed mill, take them to the barns and raise them and process
them. Only thing is is there’s ventilation in and out.

Commissioner: that’s one of the concerns—even though it’s enclosed, you’re still
rotating air. One of the thoughts I had as I read through your proposed ordinances
changes was it seemed mighty funny you wanted between a quarter to a half a mile to
two miles between chicken houses but you only wanted up to 400 feet to a human house.
I thought it was kind of funny when you’re moving that much air who knows.

Doug: I drove out from Springdale, and I live about 250 yards from one of the worst-run
chicken houses I’ve ever seen. If you got close to the door within maybe 10 feet, you
could smell maybe a musty ammonia smell.

One of the reasons the odor doesn’t transfer is because of the humidity regulation. We
don’t have a lot of feathers and those types of things flying through the air.

Commissioner: Do any one of these guys have a specific presentation they’d like to give
on any particular segment of this operation, I wonder?

Video of the fertilizer plant. 80 broiler operations keep the processing plant working 40
hours per week. The extruder makes enough heat to sterilize it, and then we can go
interstate with it.

Commissioner: where would the location of the fertilizer plant be?

Out along the railroad track. All of our facilities will be about 8-12 miles from town.

The processing plant would be in the city of Burley in a commercial zone.

Commissioner: is it mainly to keep odor down or to keep dust and feathers and things
from going out?

Both.

Commissioner ward: how do you plan to transport your chickens and your broilers to
your processing plant. I don’t know if you noticed, but you follow the feathers.
It’s cages and there’s a tarpaulin over that. The cages, the wires on the cages are really
tight-meshed as well.

Commissioner Wills: What happens with the waste from the hatchery portion of this?

We have a pet food division. Those will be ground up and go there; those can go with the
fertilizer plant also.

These type of barns are the best management practice that the poultry industry is going
to.

2 million birds for a single shift.

Commissioner: one of my concerns with your recommendations here is there’s no limit

factor. It’s not necessarily the animal units, it’s the size of this… something that just
keeps getting bigger and bigger and there’s no way to control it.

3 tanker loads of eviscerate a day; 3 semi-loads of poultry litter going to the fertilizer
plant per day.

8 loads of chickens per day. Half a million a week.

This industry, scientifically, is probably the most scientific industry in the world. They
were the first in the industry instead of using hormones to use genetics and antibodies.
This is probably the safest, most technologically advanced production facility ever.

Commissioner: why don’t we have somebody here with scientific whatever to show us
whatever. We’re talking common people here. Why don’t we have like a DEQ
representative or whatever?

[no discussion so far of energy and water use, or of road strain; no discussion of zoonotic
disease]

Got ordinances from Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, and California. Poultry was
treated as a permitted use in their Ag zones.

2 miles is roughly what the USDA looks at as a quarantine zone.

Used setbacks in the CAFO ordinance.

300 ft. setbacks from wells. In Fresno, setbacks would be reduced 50% if you have
environmental controls.

Only visit by appointment, 7-14 days.

Commissioner James: DEQ, USDA—see anything that is a problem for you guys?

State poultry improvement program, will have to be a member.

14 loads of live birds rather than 8.

Bill Parsons, Hy-Line: Have to develop the Ordinance not just for these two businesses.
Suggest that you deny the original amendment to your CAFO ordinance, and then instruct
the two organizations to have a couple of work sessions to construct this ordinance.

Bill Garr, Iowa: produce day-old chicks. 6 commercial hatcheries in the US. Around each
hatchery, locate a breeder house (independent houses). Build 3-4 houses in the next 10-12
months. 34,000 hens. Depopulated at 65-67 weeks. Producer is paid through a contract.
Hy-Line retains ownership of the birds. 4 houses in the state of Iowa. Contract written to
cover principle expenses. 66x585 house size. Two-story house design with a manure pit
in the bottom. Odor and those concerns ‘a non-issue’. Between 500 and 520 tons per
year. 40-45% moisture content. 2-2.5 ton per acre spread.

Commissioners: is there an agreement in place now between you and them?

Yes.

Parsons: comprehensive poultry CAFO ordinance.

Administrator: have less than a quorum of you involved as a subcommittee (as a way to
avoid open meeting laws)
Once they have that document worked out then bring it back to this commission. If you
just have one or two of you on that task force, you’d probably be ok. Obviously we’re not
looking to cut anybody out of the process but we’re just kind of trying to make it more
expedient. 2 days’ notice for a special meeting. [ex-parte communication?]

What you have continued are just those four of five items. You’ve got to separate that
from this Chapter.

We’re going to deny the initial petition, but we can still continue.

Commissioners: why can’t the county come up with a zoning ordinance themselves, then
let them come in and apply for their business?

I don’t think we’re expert enough.

Petition to amend was withdrawn. Motion to accept was made and passed.

9-17-09
Cap on poultry CAFOs?
Mentioned bird-flu: They actually have two zones that they want to identify—a restricted
area and a control area. Control area—between 2-10km beyond the restricted area. Some
sort of restriction does need to be in place there. There’s a requirement of doing a special
use permit. And Hy-Line’s not opposed to that, but it may be a good idea to put some
provisions in there as to what that permit is going to require.

Commissioner Beck: how about humans? We don’t fall in the equation, or?

You’re not part of the USDA kill zone.

European Union: they’ve established that their radius would be 3km (roughly 2 miles).
Saying that that’s the needed setback between facilities, that’s probably a bit of a stretch.
Just with 5 barns in the county, you’ve virtually locked up all of the ag ground in the
county. Property rights- limitation on the rights of other property owners to build. Only
Fresno had a two-mile setback from facility to facility.

Are those birds inspected on the farm before they leave to go to the kill plant?

If they’re not inspected on the place, the outbreak itself would not be contained at the
farm.

Development density: where did these numbers come from?

Matt: The development density that initially came from… we would not be land
applying. I sat down and said, ok if we have a barn and it meets the setbacks, that’s going
to be a certain size facility. We don’t want any large facility to be any denser than a
three-barn system. Anything larger than that, you don’t want to pack it in any tighter than
what a three-barn system would allow.

Commissioner: there’s no science behind it, then they can say it’s not… I’m almost of the
opinion there’s gotta be some science behind it.

Isn’t there some DEQ…

Commissioner Beck: my biggest concern with this is the future of this thing and the
bigness. We need some sort of control. In that two years we don’t know what we’ve got
until you’re up and running. The open-endedness of this thing. Even yourselves. You can
tell us you’re going to do the two-million birds, and we may say alright we can live with
that, and then you come back and say let’s go four-million. We’ve got to have some
control over that. If this thing isn’t handled right, it’s open-ended.

If we do approve a CAFO poultry ordinance, do we put a cap on how many birds can
come to the county period?

Commissioner Beck: you can overdo a good industry sometimes. I think we can all admit
that.
Everything is structured in the poultry industry to volume.

Feed mill: 60 tons per hour

How many birds in a producing facility does it take to run: every 20 days.

Roughly 3.5 to 4 million birds on the ground. That’s at one-half capacity.

You yourselves have the capacity to double without any problems. We’re talking 8
million birds.

Administrator: you can set a cap on animal units per facility. You’ve gone down that road
before. What is the maximum facility size that you’re going to allow in the county? From
a public health and safety, and general welfare standpoint.

Beck: the problem is, we don’t know.

80-barn site to supply.

Commissioner Garner: You’re saying that the 166 for animal unit. You’re saying then
what you’d do is limit animal unit per facility?

Administrator: Given the size of this, have you run the numbers on how big is the CAFO
site to do 4 million birds?

Matt: roughly, it depends on how tight that density is. We’re not looking to be so tight.
But what we’re looking at now we’re probably going to be somewhere in the
neighborhood of a 500 acre site.

The location of those sites are based upon who we impact and how we impact the
community as well. And what our growth potential is.

Beck: can you see our dilemma though? We can handle you, but say California kicks ‘em
out… we got 40 more of ‘em, and that’s scary. What goes in has to come out.

Commissioner: over the years, we have other counties in the state of Idaho dealing with
CAFOs, and we felt like our county’s done a pretty good job of handling those issues.
What commissioner Beck’s concerned about is you’re throwing those doors wide open.

Beck: Chicken air. They’re confined. They’re confined in a small place. I appreciate the
fact that there’s going to be exhaust fans, but what comes in has to go out. We’ve seen it
in the dairy industry.

Matt: you always have that option—when you’re starting to see that influx, the county
has that option of making that tweak to tighten things up.
Administrator: any time we’ve tried to do that, we lag about 6 months behind and a dozen
applications.
If you want to limit development to 10 million birds a year, I don’t think that would be a
problem from our aspect

Commissioners: from your aspect; what about those twenty other companies?

When we had Matt look at the CAFO permit, the logical step was to try to find what
everyone else has done at this point so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Throughout all of that investigation, all of the stuff that we’re spending so much time on,
no other state has regulated any of that stuff because the industry has done it.

Commissioner whitehead: you want some idea out there for you for the number of birds
we want in the county.

The public’s going to be concerned about the same thing Commissioner Beck is
concerned about.

Alan Anderson: How we going to set this so it’ll work now and it’ll work later. If you
look at the old system, it was always based on nutrient management. There needs to be
something that says, if I’m going to have 50,000 birds and I’m going to spread the
manure on the farm, I’ve got to have the acreage to do that. Something that addresses it
and puts a mitigating factor in.

If it’s confined it’s one ruling, if it’s not confined, it’s got to follow the existing CAFO
ordinance.

It’s going to move a lot of farm property out of production.

Money: the state gave a number of 2.5 million.

40million dollar payroll. And the jobs that we’re attracting here…?

We need a vehicle to allow this CAFO ordinance to move forward. What Kerry has
drafted we think will meet our needs.

Commissioner: I’m not 100% confident. He’s put together something in 2 days or less of
which he thinks might work for the county. I don’t know how everybody else thinks
about this, but I’ve had this in my position 4 hours. I’m not 100% sure that I’m ready just
to say yeah let’s take this.

Density and biosecurity: two big things. Not scientific.

Setbacks aren’t an issue?

Setbacks are the same setbacks that are in the existing CAFO ordinance. We think the 5
miles is just way too much encumbrance.

At what level do we actually get concerned about the biosecurity?

We don’t start regulating them under this until they get 16,000 birds.

Beck: if we don’t have something in place, we could have a problem way before that year
gets here.

Matt: if you have a large facility with a lot of birds it would have a serious economic
impact; but it would also have a serious economic impact if some other facility made that
facility have a problem.

2-mile USDA setback, that’s kind of your kill zone. Other new facilities would have to
have a 2-mile setback. From boundary to boundary.

10/15/09 work meeting

industry version: CAFO= 250 birds. 50,000 birds you can’t land apply
Hy-Line: contract with a neighbor to receive that litter.

[what about biosecurity setbacks from land application areas?]

Bill Parsons (Hy-Line): why it’s important to have land application for under 50,000
birds. If you’re going to require to get into and not have third-party land available, it
eliminated hy-line from doing this project. Birds raised for approximately 60 weeks.
Clean facility, take out fertilizer and land apply. A nutrient management plan on file with
the county. Typically the operators do not have the requisite amount of ground to comply
with your ordinance. Just put 5 or 6 online in Indiana. It’s a matter of helping the
commission understand what hy-line does. All inside and then applied in accordance with
the nutrient management plan. 40 tons of fertilizer in a cycle.

Commissioner Garner: does that really put you out of business, or does it just make it so
that you have to have a conditional use permit to land apply?

Commissioner: Would you let the commission know about how much acreage would be
required to do land application?

Parsons: 120 acres.

Commissioner: when they land apply, do you have to have a waste management plan
with the state of Idaho?

Yes.

Commissioner: I’m sure you’d have to have a land application one then.
Parson: we’re not suggesting that we just promiscuously go out and apply fertilizer. We
want to do it in accordance with the plan.

Commissioner: how many birds does Hy-Line have in their plan?

Parsons: the farmer owns the barn, and they just sign a contract for ten years while he
pays for it.

Beck: third-party things started ending up outside our county. My feeling is if we decide
to go and let them do a third-party thing it has to be county acres.

Parsons: all farmers neighbors are going to want that.

Commissioner: the bio-security thing. To me that helps structure that you’re not going to
get 10,000 of these things. Your poultry FFA 4-H small time people, what are you going
to do about my chickens? How does that work?

Those facilities are definitely an issue for us and for Hy-Line. Those ten chickens, they
have an outbreak or they have an issue we’re going to get impacted by it.

We still at the end of the day biosecurity on the farm is the most important part. Along
that line the county version calls for four miles separation between facilities.

Commissioner: third party waste is hard to control

Parsons: This is a one-time a year, every 60 weeks.

Commissioner: what’s the possibility there that this guy under 50,000 wants to land
apply, does it need to be done within this 4-mile…

Land application cannot be within anyone else’s biosecure area.

Commissioner: are we going to require the county to police it?

Parson: but it isn’t your problem. And it hasn’t been an issue with what they’ve done in
other areas.

Breeder facilities (broiler or layer): producing fertilized eggs

Pullet: up to 18 days: really young chick
Layers and broilers: two different types of chickens. Layers are going to be vaccinated
for different things than the broilers are.

Commissioner: we don’t want to have a chicken farm on every corner. We don’t want to
have a dairy on every corner like some other counties. I don’t like that in there (the
waiver). I don’t understand why that would be in there if you’re really concerned about
biosecurity.

Commissioner: I sit here and look at how much effort’s being put into biosecurity and I
see no point if you’re going to let someone set up right next to your barn.
Industry: no point for a cap when there’s a conditional use permit process. Comments
about adding a shift to the plant.

5 million birds to get to the first phase of the project. 4 mile setback, we’re talking 10
locations in the whole county. Our thought is we want to have a whole bunch of chickens
in one spot and as far away from everybody as possible.

Beck: if we allow an uncap-able thing in one spot, those other things become uncap-able
entities.

Commissioner wells: in that situation if you’ve got 5 million birds here and 5 million
birds there doesn’t it become a little unreasonable to put 5 million more in the middle.

Whitehead: I’m leaning towards the industrial version because of the fact that it explains
more than the county version does.

Parson: You can always refer it to a committee. If we were to get the major things, I think
that it wouldn’t take the four of us very long to finish off the major hurdles. The right of
the county to inspect, there needs to be in the application for the CAFO an approved plan
of inspection because neither industry can afford to have somebody show up on the
doorstep.

Commissioner: tarping of this material as its transporting.

Commissioner: the numbers are kind of restricted by biosecurity zones.

Commissioner wells: about every other year or so I buy 100 or 200 chicks or so and raise
them up to butcher them and put them in my freezer, would I have to do this?

Allow hatcheries in industrial/commercial areas—questions about whether that’s

arbitrary and capricious.

USDA controls how fast the processing plant can grow. They limit how fast they can add
capacity to that line. They can only add ¼ capacity every three months. It would take a
year just to double from start up. Even with 20 million birds it would take us anywhere
from 4-6 years to get to that level. 2 sections (ground). Plant is planning on starting with
2 processing lines with close to 100,000 birds a shift. 4.5-5 million birds. That’s one shift
for those two lines. Ten million for birds with two shifts.

90% of these birds would leave Idaho.

Hy-Line maximum: each barn will not have more than 50,000 birds in it. And when the
eggs are laid the eggs go to the hatchery.

45,000 birds per barn. 2 barns emptied each day (or each shift).

Barns will be all together on one piece of ground. Pods of barns, minimum spacing in
between those pods, but then bigger spacing between pod sections.

Animal unit maximum per CAFO: 7500. 166 birds = 1 au. 1.25 million birds.

We’re dealing with county people response who have to live with the situation.

You’d like a permit for 20 million, is that what you’re saying?

Matt: the smaller the cap you put on us, the bigger the burden on us.

Are you saying if we put a cap at 5 million, you guys are going to walk?

Matt: 5 million cap with a 4 mile setback.

Commissioner: I’m assuming you’re going to affect 16 families. How many jobs are you
guys going to bring in that’s going to replace those 16 families? Not your introductory
labor, not that kind of thing. I’m just wondering if we’re going to run current county
families right out of their home.

Matt: I think the section we looked at there were 2 or 3 houses within a mile.

Commissioner: the real concern is that if Tamerack loop was right next door to this
facility, how willing are you going to be.. several of those homes out there are quarter
million dollar homes, that’s their whole life savings. If it takes and diminishes the value
of their home, their lifestyle…

Matt: in most cases, those people with those homes are the people we have to buy the
property from.

Industry: my task was for property acquisition. The two site locations that we’ve
narrowed down, both have 1 family within a half mile radius, both of which we are
buying out. The impact as far as environmental is probably the cleanest industry for the
type of facilities that we have. We like to keep all these contained facilities in one
location so we can control that. In buying the properties we looked at those scenarios up
front. For us to pay back this note to the state, we have to be able to produce x amount of
chickens. This plant took all of the negatives out of all those scenarios for the past 20
years. The state of the art facility that we have here would negate any of those concerns.

50 million dollars worth of tax base running 2 lines one shift.

100 million dollars worth of tax base running twice that.
There is nothing in these facilities that hasn’t been question marked by every country in
the world as well as here locally. This is a LEED plant. The first one in poultry in the US.
First total UV powerline generated. There’s very few things that we haven’t taken into
consideration to be sure that everybody’s happy with it.

Commissioner: I don’t think everybody on this panel is ready to fess up to 20 million

birds right now. Could we do this incrementally?

Matt: if we talk performance, what kind of performance would you guys want to see?

Commissioner: Can you see where public and myself…we’re sitting here and you’re
telling us all these wonderful things, and they sound great, they really do. We started out
with 1, 2 million chickens in a statement 3 weeks ago and suddenly we’re up to 20
million chickens.

If you put us in a lock where we can’t grow, the investors are going to look at that and
say why would we want to do that. Claims about a shortage of poultry in the world.

2 sections is typically as much as we would ever grow in one facility in one location. 50-
mile radiuses are typical. When we put our four-mile radiuses around we looked at that
and we saw 5 facilities.

Commissioner: there’s always going to be people who are going to complain about that.
Let’s step forward and say let’s help these people succeed.

Industry: $12.50 and hour average with benefits. 1500 employees.

60 new managers, their average salary is $90,000.

The wage scale we’ve got for the $12.50 across the board is the number that the state
gave us.

7 facility types coming in at one time: grow-house, breeder, pullet, production plant,
fertilizer plant, pet food plant, feed mill, grain storage.

Conflicts manager is $250,000 income. The mid managers average income is $60,000 for
those 52 offices.

The people who are going to be running this thing are going to be making a whole lot of
money. The people who work for those people have the ability to rise up.

2% VOCs regulated. Water effluent will be cleaner than the water you’re drinking from
your faucet now.

Commissioner Wells: with your biosecurity you’d only be able to put up 5 facilities.
Matt: the map that we had is a five-mile radius…

What might simplify the board’s decision is a maximum of 2 sections. The industry
regulates itself. That’s unique.
Commissioner: I have a thought. If they come in and apply for a CAFO permit for 5
million birds, and in our permitting process we gave them the permit for 5 million birds
and in the permitting process we stipulate that it would have to be build exactly according
to the permit. If they want to expand, they’d have to come back in.

Up to 10 million birds the first year.

Every week, half a million birds. That number would go up after we put on the second
line.

10 million birds takes us through the first 12 months at full capacity. It’s not easy to put
200 million dollar packages together with the local banks right now.

Commissioner: It’s not easy to make that decision, and you’ve had ten years and we’ve
had three weeks.

Commissioner: we can’t talk about preferential treatment.

Unemployment in the county right now: 7.8%

[numbers a big issue; keeping track a big issue; ghost town issues]

We thought that the dairy industry would help downtown, we thought they would help
give our young people jobs so they wouldn’t have to go work somewhere else. And
instead, we’ve had to bring in more police force because it’s brought in the minimum
wage people that the dairy industry attracts… I think out of that 1500, I think maybe 90
or 95% of those jobs will be minimum wage jobs.

What’s going to keep in the future from running 24 hours?

USDA.

Biosecurity: “because we can’t let them get sick”

110 sheds total, between 8 and 10 miles south of Burley

34 years ago, we had an integrated system here. We raised around 2 million chickens,
maybe 2.5 million. I had 5 coops. Some of them held maybe 15,000. This one coop will
hold as many as I had total. I had a cattleman come to my place. He was so surprised. I
was raising more pounds of meat in that one house than he was in his whole lot. He was
dumbfounded. The technology that has come along in the past 34 years is astounding. I
went through Springdale Arkansas, I never have been in a more beautiful city than that.
Just is clean and beautiful. And the big processing plant was there before some of the
town. The town built around it. It just takes 8 weeks, and you’ve got 4 and 5 pound birds.
Money starts flowing fast. It isn’t like a lot of other businesses. It turns over every 8
weeks. We have an opportunity here in Burley, Idaho.

11/19/09

Our broilers are where the meat is going to be produced or raised to the point to where we
get to production weight. We have to start at one end of the farm and move back through
the farm to get to one cycle.

Industry: state estimate-- $50 million to the county in taxes. Threats to move.

Commissioner: The reason you were out of business is because the big guys cut the price.
What’s going to keep that from happening here?

Industry: it’s a factor.

12/17/09—public hearing

Level Turner: Nothing to gain or lose, representing the Turner clan. Came in 1936. Doug
Manning- thought they were crazy and still do, but is convinced they can do what they
say they can do. Concerns about developers selling out to big boys. Big operators
consider violations and fines a natural cost of doing business. EPA and local regulators
do not have enough money to enforce regulations. What’s a $500,000 fine to a company
doing several billion dollars worth of business. Tyson tied to immigration conspiracy. 36-
count indictment. Human trafficking. Encourage you to set in place any kind of
regulation that you could do to slow down this chicken deal. It’s not going to work for us,
our locals are not going to work there. It will be migrant workers coming in. They’re not
going to buy their products locally.

Dale Turner: been all over the country with trucks. We’re in a slump, we could use the
work. But I would caution you to take a look at this. You can smell these plants virtually
anywhere you go. Just open your windows and carry a bucket with you cause you’re
going to throw up. This plant in CA was killing 660,000 chickens a day. All you had to
do was follow the feathers. What are they going to do with all these dead and these other
chickens that are out there? That’s an awful lot of feathers, grease, and residue. They’d
like to tell you they can sell everything but the squawk on these chickens. That’s not true.
Take a look at this situation here, and don’t run headlong into it. I can tell you we’re
importing a storm because of the economic situation right here. These guys have way too
much money, too many lawyers. Be careful. Real careful on this.

Garner: concern about the number.

[what about using available land base?]

Commissioner: USDA and EPA regulate emissions. It’s based on effluency. There’s a
few entities that I came in touch with that were of some value. Space Dynamics. It was
made for the US government. They said under the very best circumstances… we’re trying
to make ordinance changes before doing an application… these people have done
research for the government on chicken farms, dairy CAFOs, etc. The number one
effluent was the almond industry. The number two was the chicken industry. The number
one thing that’s going to be involved is airborne. We’re not here to discuss whether or not
they’re coming to town. We’re here to discuss the numbers. The key is to keep the
moisture low enough so the chickens don’t get disease. 10-15% of that pollutant’s going
to go out of that fan and into your atmosphere. So the question is how many chickens?
What number is there out there that’s going to be reasonable?

Beck: how do you control or limit where these things go?

Commissioner: Once we permit something, we don’t have any control. It’s based on EPA
and USDA regulations. You understand what putting teeth into it is from the USDA EPA
standpoint? The EPA and the USDA will administer a fine. They’ll give you a fine for it.
Typically they’ll pay the fine and come into compliance.

Resident: So what you’re saying is the county can’t control through it’s standards… so
what are we talking about then?

Truth of the matter is, the difference between some of these areas are, the town’s were
built around the facilities. The question remains, what number are we willing to have in
the county?

Jeff Hawker: this issue you guys are talking about is the ordinance of where they’re
grown, correct? The southeast portion of this county can handle a lot of stuff, I mean
we’re not talking about a lot of stuff having to be grown in one given area, are we?

Beck: yes we are.

Visitors drove past the grow houses. Didn’t actually go into them.

Resident: as far as control is concerned, they have to have their own veterinarian in the
plant. They have meat inspectors. It’s probably one of the most self-policied industries
today. Some of those things that they have done in the past were done by bad operators.
Every application is an individual application. You don’t have to… just because you gave
one to Charlie doesn’t mean you have to give one to George. I’m convinced that you’re
making this a little bit more difficult than it needs to. If you have CAFOs and you have a
problem, they can be reversed. 10 million chickens is not unreasonable.

I talked to the neighboring mayor from Springfield. He said one thing I wouldn’t have
was a kill plant. The other thing he said was our social structure has really changed. You
made a comment that just because we did one. If we change the ordinance, and we give it
to the first one, if they come in, we can’t stop it. What I’m saying is we don’t have as
much control as a county as people think. You don’t reverse very easy.

Garner: the one thing that we are interested in is when we make these changes we are
concerned about the whole county. You can see the same mentality that everybody else in
the county. Somebody is going to have it in their back yard.

Resident: if you get within 50 feet of it you’re going to smell it. But you have to be
within 50 feet of it to smell it.

Beck: eggs and chickens are two different things.

Commissioner: no clue how many cattle they have in the cattle.

Half a million.

Commissioner: those people you spoke with, did they actually work in the facilities?

Resident: one person.

Commissioner: what kind of jobs were they? Were they minimum wage paying jobs?

Resident: she said that they were jobs that were providing incomes of… between 20-
25,000 with benefits. I think they were finding that both spouses would have to work in a
home.

Industry: need 4 million birds in the biosecure area.

Commissioner: we keep talking all kinds of different numbers here. Was it 6 million
Matt, that we talked about last time?

Matt: 6 million for two broiler plant shifts. The market is going to dictate what that
number is. The main processing equipment, their equipment can range from 104 birds per
minute up to 140.

Commissioner: I’ve just heard so many numbers over the past three months I can’t keep
track.

We talked about how many entities were going to be involved who were going to apply
for permits. We were told there were going to be five different entities applying for this
whole thing. We were trying to have a number so if every entity would have a number we
would reach this end figure. That’s why the numbers are the way they are.

4 million for two lines one shift; 8 million for two lines two shifts.
Commissioner: when you talk four million in a biosecurity zone, would that increase to
maybe 8 million in a single zone?

No.

How many biosecurity zones in the county? Two mile buffer zone between the outside
boundaries.

Am I right in my thought process that there’s 5 biosecurity zones in the county? Or is

there more?

In Arkansas the density issue isn’t an issue because they are so worried about the
biohazards that anybody who raises chickens is far away from anyone else who raises
chickens.

My cousin said that it’s basically self regulating. Place a cap and some distances between
each. Cooler temperatures in this area would be a lot less air displacement in the sheds.

Resident: economics of scale. If your numbers are floating around, if I can… I’m going
to be used as the scale of how bad it could be and what you’re facing. CWA & CAA:
what happens on our place will be the worst case scenario. This case will only be better.
Last month I applied in the city of Declo a mixture of biosolids from the city and chicken
manure from hy-line. Some people took offense and some people did not. To keep out of
US waterways, we’ve got to figure out a way to apply them. This is not only a well-
written proposal, it has teeth and protections that’s far superior to what we’re governed
by. Opposition in all things.

Keith Couch: Arkansas tour. The plant was immaculate. They use a lot of water and they
keep things very clean. We talked to the plant manager and different people and they
were very positive. I’ve never seen such a clean facility. It was an older facility. I believe
50 years old. A lot of employees. They ran about 460-480,000 birds a day. After that we
drove around and looked at some of the routes. No smell 20-25 yards away. The main
facility was on 10 or 12 acres or something like that. If I had a suggestion I’d start at a
number that you can live with and then go from there.

Beck: some of the others mentioned that they did not go to a grow-out facility.

Keith: their facilities have to be clean, because they’re EPA approved and they have to be
spotless.

Beck: an individual I talked to in Arkansas one of the things he talked about was that it
was getting cost-prohibitive to do 1-3 sheds.

Keith: went by both. Went to the city and talked to the sewer operator and she was very
positive about it.
Resident: 30 years ago, Simplots was dumping raw sewage in our river. Simplots was
reversed. They had to start putting, and the same with Oreida and those other plants out
there. Today, you can walk up and down our rivers and they’re clean. You can waterski
in them, you can even go fishing in them. What’s it going to give us over 20, 30, 40, 50
years. Schools, transportation. You put up with what you have to put up with for the
industry.

Resident: “diversity.” This is a commodity that has been proven.

Commissioner: if we have sufficient evidence to make a motion, then we close the
hearing. Close the hearing for taking of information to make the recommendations.

Administrator: you could testify before the county commissioners if you did the tour.

4 yes, 3 opposed to closing the hearing.

Beck: Give them 4.2 million in a biosecurity zone, but to help us keep a handle on this we
have an 8-mile biosecurity zone.

Four mile from outside biosecurity zone to outside biosecurity zone.

Beck: I’ve probably been confused on how we determine these biosecurity zones.

Looking at the proposed chapter 10, page 3 (9-10-5): your proposal would be to change
maximum density size to 4.2 million. Page 4. Minimum biosecurity distance of 4 mile
buffer zone extending from its external boundaries.

Motion to recommend to the county commissioners.