On Monday March 10, 2003, CREEK made the following presentation to the Prince Edward County Council. One councillor made a motion to support the Brockton and Kincardine resolutions, the Mayor ensured that it was referred to the Planning Committee. That committee reports back to the Council at the April 7 meeting.

Picton - Monday March 10, 2003

By Linda Roberts
Chairperson of CREEK (County Regional Environmental Evaluation Ko-alition)

Thank you Mayor Taylor, and councillors, for the opportunity to address you tonight on this most important issue. This issue concerns the quality of water in the county, and your responsibility to ensure the safety of your constituents.

Prince Edward County has traditionally been a farming community. We "newcomers" appreciate that, and moved here in part because of the r ural character of the area. Believe it or not, some of us even like the smell of cow manure. Our concerns lie, not with family farms, b ut with corporate livestock factories. If you have had the opportunity to read the information in the package distributed to you last week, you will be familiar with the health risks associated with intensive livestock operations.

A farm ceases to be a family farm when the farm is a Corporation, when the owners of the corporation do not live on the land, when the corporation does not grow food for its livestock on that farm, when the corporation exports its entire product, these corporate factories' units of production just happen to be livestock.

Intensive Livestock Operations have an economic liability in massive amounts of animal waste byproduct they produce. Manure to a family farm is an asset; to a hog factory, the amount of liquid waste produced is an economic burden that reduces bottom line profitability. The primary goal becomes disposal of this liability, not the growth of crops.

We are aware that Prince Edward County has a Nutrient Management bylaw; we have a number of concerns about this bylaw. Some of these include:

• The bylaw does not require a watershed risk assessment or a hydrogeologic study prior to approval of a hog factory's nutrient management plan. According to a University of Guelph study of nutrient management by-laws in Ontario, in May of 2001, Saugeen Shores, Stone Mills and Tyendinaga all require hydrogeologic reports before the establishment of an ILO.

• The bylaw is "complaint driven". That is, it is the citizens of the county who have to monitor and attempt to enforce the bylaw.

• Complaints are dealt with by the Agricultural Advisory Committee, the composition of which is unbalanced, to say the least.

We believe that the number of animal units allowed by this bylaw is excessive. Most municipal bylaws in place call for a much lower animal cap than does the bylaw in Prince Edward County. In the University of Guelph Study, Prince Edward County was found to have had the least stringent bylaw, out of 54 bylaws, in terms of the trigger for a nutrient management plan. Saugeen shores has established an animal cap of 75 animal units after determining that any operation above that level does not constitute "normal."

In November of 2001, the Normal Farm Practices Board ruled that a 200 animal unit weaner barn was not normal. It then ordered the f actory operator to install two sixty-foot stacks on two hog factories to dissipate odour. OMAF is fighting this ruling because it does not want the "farm" to look like a "factory." If it smells like a factory, if it looks like a factory, it probably is a factory, not a farm.

The claim often heard is that the agriculture industry in Ontario produces high quality food in an environmentally sustainable manner, and we believe that the traditional farm, where the operator lives on the premises, does. However, seven of the most polluted watersheds in Canada are here in Ontario. A remedial action plan has been put in place for the Bay of Quinte. We believe that the risk from Intensive Livestock Operations to our watershed is too serious a concern to dismiss or ignore. Huron-Kinloss tests water in over 34 locations, 5 times a year, and publishes the results. Where is Prince Edward County's water-testing program? If there is one, why are the results not made public?

Most of Europe says hog factories and liquid animal waste are not safe, many states in the U.S.. say they are not safe, Quebec has put a moratorium on them, and the Canadian Medical Association is asking for a moratorium across the country. Can we afford to do less?

The pork marketing board, maple leaf pork, Pfizer, and OMAF have spent 4.1 million dollars trying to convince us that every hog farmer is a family farmer and that hog factories are not a threat. Those of us who have concerns about the health and well-being of our water, air and soil, are, to a great extent, amateurs, with little money at our disposal. Nor do we pretend to be experts on Municipal laws and regulations and operations; we have to rely on you, our elected representatives, to do the right thing to protect your watershed, and your citizens.

The municipal act states that you have the responsibility for the safety of your citizens. Your hands are "not tied." Until the provincial regulations are in place, council has the right to make decisions for the benefit of the area under its Jurisdiction, as demonstrated by the supreme court decision in the Hudson, Quebec case re pesticides. It held that:

The Hudson by-law was validly enacted, pursuant to a general welfare provision of Quebec's Cities and Towns Act, equivalent to Ontario's Municipal Act, that allows municipalities to enact by-laws to secure peace, order, good government, health and general welfare.

In affirming the town's ability to enact the by-law, the Supreme Court of Canada endorsed the precautionary principle, stating "in the context of the precautionary principle's tenets, the town's concerns about pesticides fit well under the rubric of preventative action.

In March of 2001, an Ontario superior court justice backed an Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh municipal bylaw restricting the growth of ILO's. In a November 2001 ruling, Ontario's divisional court affirmed that municipalities may make by-laws protecting agricultural resources and the environment under the Planning Act that are more restrictive than federal and provincial laws as long as they are not in conflict with them. This would include by-laws to regulate and control intensive livestock production. The court found that a municipal by-law capping the number of animals at a farm operation does not restrict normal farm practice in Ontario.

Brockton has passed a resolution requesting the province to impose a moratorium on intensive livestock operations. Kincardine council has passed a resolution requesting the ontario government and omaf to re-evaluate and modify the stage 2 regulations in view of its concern for the farming community.

Therefore, CREEK is asking you at this time to impose an "Interim Control Bylaw", for the purpose of an environmental impact study, until one or both of the following happens:

• A set of provincial regulations, which addresses the concerns of all parties, is enacted

• The hydrogeologic study of the county has been completed so that the impact of ILO's can be assessed.

Thank you once again for the opportunity provided to us this evening. We sincerely hope that you consider the points that we have made here tonight and that you determine that factory farms do not contribute to the health and well-being of your constituents. Nor, by the way, do factory farms contribute to your economy - the trucks importing the feed and exporting the product degrade the roads, and the factory is taxed at the farm level.