By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The opponents of a 65,600-chicken CAFO that has been operating for a year within a mile of Roaring River and its state park unveiled their case Thursday against the permitting procedures used by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Appearing before John Kopp, a commissioner with the Administrative Hearing Commission, in a hearing room of the Truman Building, attorneys for the department and the opponents staked their positions on the hilltop cluster of barns in Barry County.

John Price, a Springfield attorney representing the Roaring River Parks Alliance, said in his opening remarks that a permit must be complete and accurate before it can be accepted by the department. He said the permit that was granted to Michelle and Rodney Ozbun, who live along Route F between the park and Eagle Rock, was neither complete nor accurate.

Price would later interview an expert witness who said there was no detailed blueprint for the $1 million project, “just four rectangles on a piece of paper.”

Price also said the DNR has a duty to protect the state parks under its influence. The department, he said, looks at only one thing at a time, which in this case was water quality. He said it did not consider the impact on air quality and how that might affect the park. He said it simply ignored its responsibility to protect the park.

“The DNR looks at things in a segmented fashion — water, air and state parks — and never the twain any shall meet,” he said.

The DNR was represented by Tim Duggan, an attorney with the Missouri attorney general’s office. He said the Ozbuns’ concentrated animal feeding operation is a dry-litter handling system, and that the hundreds of tons of waste produced by the CAFO annually are shipped off site for land application by a third party. The system, he said, cannot cause a “pollution event.”

He said the DNR protected the park when it issued the permit, and that the permit itself was complete and accurate. He said a less-strict approach to a permit is used with a dry-litter system.

“The permit is adequate to protect public resources,” he said.

Before witnesses were called, the attorneys and Kopp discussed the potential impact of a recent decision by Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce that initially prohibited construction of a CAFO within 15 miles of a state park or historic site. The decision was amended in early December to two miles. That case involves proposed hog CAFOs near the Arrow Rock State Historic Site.

Kopp and Duggan said the decision by Joyce had no bearing on the appeal by the opponents of the Ozbun CAFO. Price said it is relevant in establishing a record for future legal action that would make reference to the judge’s decision. He said the opponents of the Ozbun CAFO could not cite the judge’s action in a future appeal if they did not cite it during this initial hearing.

Duggan said it is unclear whether the judge’s decision would affect existing CAFOs or just those yet to be built. He said the judge’s decision came after the Ozbun CAFO was up and running. “This has no bearing on the Ozbun CAFO,” he said.

But Price said the judge’s decision was influenced by the inability of opponents of CAFOs near state parks and historic sites to get relief through the appeal procedure. He said the Administrative Hearing Commission is worthless in that regard because the DNR ignores the commission.