By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

CASSVILLE, Mo. — Sharon Riedel started to explain to the Missouri State Park Advisory Board why confined-animal-feeding operations pose a threat to Roaring River State Park, but she couldn’t.

With tears welling up in her eyes, she had to stop to regain her composure. She said, “I am trying not to be emotional, but Roaring River is a God-given beauty that should not be taken away.’’

Riedel told the board, which met Friday morning in the Roaring River Inn, that she had heard Emory Melton, of Cassville, give a fireside chat about the history of Roaring River the night before. She described Melton as a local statesman who understands the importance of the park and the river to Barry County.

“A hundred years from now when someone gives another fireside chat will they say that our legacy was letting Roaring River be surrounded by CAFOs?’’ she asked.

Riedel was one of the more than 40 people who turned out Friday morning for the board’s meeting to express concern about what they see as a threat posed by CAFOs near state parks and historic sites. They traveled to Roaring River from Joplin, Carthage, Neosho, Eagle Rock and Arrow Rock, a historic community in central Missouri that recently filed a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and its director, Doyle Childers, to attempt to stop a hog CAFO there.

Speaker after speaker before the board decried the stench of corporate agriculture, and its influence on state politics through campaign contributions. Childers, in response to the criticism, has said the claims made by those opposed to CAFOs near state parks and historic sites are “ridiculous.’’ He said their concerns are politically motivated.

Childers, while not at the meeting Friday, also has repeatedly stated publicly that the DNR can only do what it is authorized by state law to do, and that it is up to the General Assembly to make laws.

He has stated the DNR does not have authority to address issues of zoning, location, property values, tourism or others unrelated to water quality. He says as long as a permit application for a CAFO meets the state’s requirements, the DNR has no authority not to issue a permit.

Kay Smith, a Pierce City resident who owns a cabin at Table Rock Lake, said, “The DNR tells us they were forced to issue the permit for the CAFO here at Roaring River. They said they had no choice. I don’t believe that. The statutory mission of the DNR has been compromised to the mission of big business.’’

Jean Blackwood, of Carthage, said she has never put a fishing line in Roaring River, but that she comes to the park to camp, hike and bird watch.

“Is nothing sacred?” she asked. “The DNR must think nothing is sacred. I know this is a radical idea but I think the parks should be removed from the DNR and made into a free-standing division because the DNR has become hopelessly compromised by politics.’’

She said the agency is at cross-purposes with itself. She said it cannot protect CAFOs and state parks at the same time. The representation of so many people from across the state at Friday’s meeting of the board, she said, suggests the issue has reached a “a tipping point. Don’t let them tell you you are a boisterous minority. You are the bravest among us.’’

Wes Nall, of Neosho, told the opponents of the chicken CAFO at Roaring River not to expect any help from the DNR. He said he and others who live near Crowder College at Neosho have been fighting a poultry CAFO operated by Moark and the odor associated with it for years.