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Friends: The week before Christmas and New Years, like every holiday these days,
is dreaded by the residents of south central opportunism of the CAFO polluters taking advantage of distracted and understaffed Michigan DEQ staffers to go wild. The Vreba Hoff Dairy CAFO has to all appearances spent the past week building a new waste storage lagoon -- without any notice to any
agencies, without any approvals from any level of government, despite current extensive violations and enforcement actions by the Michigan Attorney General and the the ECCSCM's president up for photographs, with the most recent ones yesterday showing the massive hole built during this week (go to www.nocafos.org/news.htm )
without knowledge by any officials. The pit is almost hidden from the road, far from the CAFO's production areas (2
miles), and the photos show clearly that there are wetlands immediately next to
the pit. Vreba Hoff clearly chose to blow off even the voluntary
siting review that the Michigan Department of Agriculture asks facilities to go
through, and raced to get this pit dug for reasons that are unclear at this
time. Complaints have been filed with MDEQ and EPA by Sierra Club and others
both before the overflight with photos from distant roads showing the
extensive construction work and again when the aerial photos came in. With
Vreba Hoff having more than 75 violations, with recent notices from the Attorney General and the DEQ that despite a consent judgment last year the
situation has "deteriorated substantially over the last few months",
it is far past time for overt and egregious flouting of our state's laws at this operation,
even if that requires shutting this operation down. As the flagship
operation for the massive Vreba Hoff franchising operations in it is even more critical to make it clear that as weak as our laws are, those who so blatantly ignore them will be held to account. But it is clear the Vreba Hoff is banking on the state to continue to
be paralyzed with regard to enforcement. Not only are they planning
expansions of this very facility (according to documents recently FOIA'd from Department of Agriculture) Vreba Hoff is also proposing to build a new
5000 head dairy CAFO in For years we have all marveled at the
extraordinary effort and skill of the ECCSCM volunteers and our own staffer
Lynn Henning in this area who have documented the unbelievable failure of CAFOS
and the disgrace our laws and leaders have allowed to exist as we fall deeper
into the cesspool of failure to act. This is the poster child
needed for action. Please tell us, what more could possibly be needed to prevent
the public health and environmental disasters waiting in the wings? Anne Woiwode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anne M. Woiwode, State Director, Sierra Club 517-484-2372 fax 517-484-3108 --
<mailto:anne.woiwode@sierraclub.org> anne.woiwode@sierraclub.org Sierra Club Michigan Chapter celebrating our 40th Anniversary on
September 9, 2007 Visit us at <http://michigan.sierraclub.org/index.shtml> http://michigan.sierraclub.org/index.shtml "Conservation is never complete. To conserve is the act of
preservation: the very name implies an ongoing process." Dr. Edgar Wayburn, past president of Sierra Club |