Lehigh Twp. restricts factory farms:
Long-awaited ordinance controls size, scope of massive tracts known as CAFOs.

CELDF Note: The title of this newspaper report says it all: "Lehigh Township RESTRICTS factory farms." The sub-title could more accurately read: "Municipality admits its residents have no right to local self-government; ordinance seeks loopholes in agribusiness-friendly state law." Absent an assertion of rights, this ordinance looks doomed to nullification by the corporate-friendly state attorney general's office under Act 38. But without consent of the governed, the state laws Lehigh officials are attempting to skirt remain illegitimate and, alas, unchallenged. 

It passed with such little fanfare that it was hard to appreciate the endless hours and hundreds of active residents behind an ordinance Lehigh Township supervisors adopted during a quiet Tuesday night meeting.

Even though its passage followed about a minute of discussion, officials and community members are hopeful the new ordinance will help Lehigh maintain its historically rural nature, and control the type, size and scope of any future Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.

The nine-page ordinance defines CAFOs as operations with more than 499 animals and establishes requirements for emissions, setbacks and construction and health permits.

It also requires the developer to submit a site evaluation by either the Animal Science Department at Penn State University or another township approved expert.
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The ordinance took more than a year of research by the township's Planning Commission, supervisors, an ad hoc group of residents and a professor from Penn State familiar with Pennsylvania's farming laws.

Township solicitor David Backenstoe said Tuesday he is confident the ordinance is "not inconsistent" with the state farming laws, which take a lot of control out of local municipality's hands when it comes to many types of agricultural operations.

The effort to adopt a CAFO law started when James Ayoub submitted plans in 2007 to bring a 4,360-hog farming operation to 63 acres off Lehigh Drive. The scope of the project — along with the fact there was little supervisors could do to ban the Concentrated Feeding Animal Operation — shocked residents, who organized community forums in which hundreds attended.

Residents nearest to the proposed CAFO organized under the name "Families for a Healthy Environment," and worked with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund to develop an ordinance prohibiting a project the size of Ayoub's from being allowed in the township.

But in October of last year, supervisors declined to pass the residents' ordinance, fearing it would not be legally defensible because it violated the state constitution by banning most types of corporate farming.

Instead, a four-person committee was formed to work with the Planning Commission. Township officials traveled to Harrisburg to learn more about what types of language might work to protect residents while still allowing farmers to operate CAFOs.

The result is an ordinance supervisors felt comfortable with. They passed it 4-0, with Sandra Hopkins absent.

The ordinance "protects and regulates for the CAFOs," Backenstoe said.

arlene.martinez@mcall.com

610-820-6530