But industry leaders say many complaints come from people opposed to factory farming, not because of excessive odor

GREEN CITY - In a place where strangers wave to each other through the passing windshields of their pickups and neighbors tend to their neighbors' crops for no more than a thank you, finding an unwelcome guest in this quiet town might seem unimaginable.

But several families in Green City, a blink-and-you-missed-it town surrounded by farms and wild sunflower fields in Sullivan County, say they've been fighting an obnoxious guest for 13 years.

Some residents have moved.

Others have complained.

Since 2000, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has received more than 1,700 odor complaints against concentrated animal feeding operations, according to a Missourian analysis of records held by the state agency. Missouri is home to 450 of these operations, including 21 large enough to have their odors regulated.

Residents of Sullivan County in north central Missouri have registered more than one-third of the complaints against the feeding operations, which typically house thousands of animals.

"Hope you had a good Thanksgiving," read a 2004 complaint. "Be glad you're not here this morning. The hog odor would about bring your turkey back to life."

Animal farm odors present the state with one of its most complicated environmental problems, said Leanne Tippett Mosby, deputy division director of the DNR's Division of Environmental Quality.

The state must protect the interest of animal producers, who provide jobs, economic benefits and food for hundreds of residents. Meanwhile, it must also protect the interests of their neighbors, who say farm odors cause health problems and simply make their lives miserable.

"I know it's a political hot potato," said Mark Fohey, vice-chairman of the Missouri Air Conservation Commission. "You can do whatever you want, and you're basically going to piss off one or the other."

Complaints registered

Of the more than 1,700 odor complaints since 2000, residents filed nearly 1,400 of them -- about 80 percent - against Premium Standard Farms, according to the state database of complaints. Premium Standard, a pork-producing heavyweight, operates in five northern Missouri counties.

Small-farm owner Rolf Christen, 53, and his family have filed about 400 complaints against Premium Standard in 6 1/2 years - the rough equivalent of one every six days.

Christen's home outside Green City sits four miles south of Premium Standard's Green Hills farm and eight miles northwest of Premium Standard's Valley View farm. Combined, they house some 200,000 hogs.

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Resource Conservation Service, 200,000 hogs produce about 650 tons of feces a year.

Winds carry the rotten egg-like smell across town, residents say.

A couple times a week, Christen said, the stench blows across picturesque corn, hay and soybean fields to his small home under towering maple trees.

"People move from the city to the country because of clean air and clean water," Christen said. "Right now we live in the middle of a cesspool."

Christen is one of about 270 Missouri residents mentioned in two ongoing odor nuisance lawsuits against Premium Standard Farms.

"Ill-smelling odors, hazardous substances and/or contaminated wastewater have escaped and continue to escape from the defendant's swine factories onto the plaintiffs' properties and thus have substantially impaired and continue to impair the plaintiff's use and quiet enjoyment of their properties," the lawsuits read.

According to the lawsuits, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, odors from the feeding operations can cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, breathing difficulties and irritated eyes, noses and throats.

A January report released by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services says some studies have shown that odors exacerbate the pre-existing health problems of nearby residents while affecting their overall quality of life.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported in 1996 that the odors could affect a person's mood and physical well-being.

"To me, that suggests it's something we should be concerned with because as a society we want to protect all our people," said Peter Thorne, professor with the University of Iowa's Department of Occupational and Environmental Health.

Full Story: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2008/01/02/
whats-smell-neighbors-complain-factory-hog-farms-a/