Dead-hog photos lead to controversy over feedlot records

Star Tribune Minneapolis, Minnesota

7/27/2003

A man dressed all in black and his two companions showed up at a farm near Nicollet, Minn., and took photos of several dead hogs awaiting a rendering plant's truck. Then the farmer accused the three -- all animal-rights activists -- of trespassing and, with persuasion of a deputy sheriff, got the digital photos erased.

The visit in April has touched off a wave of controversy about feedlots, terrorism and public records across southern Minnesota and as far away as Colorado.

Minnesota has more than 29,000 feedlots, and county boards in three counties with large animal populations have asked the state to close records of feedlot locations as "security information."

Nobles County, which has more than 600 feedlots, also wants to increase penalties for trespassing and has attached a $250 charge for making copies of its feedlot registration list. An opinion on the legality of that charge from state Administration Commissioner Brian Lamb is expected any day. And the public-records issue could be headed for the 2004 Legislature.

Livestock promoters say officials should be as concerned about protecting the nation's food supply as they are about protecting airports and power plants. Indeed, experts have said the nation's farms could become targets for biological terrorism.

The animal-rights incident "obviously shook some people up and raised questions about the vulnerability of farming operations," said Nobles County Attorney Gordon Moore, who is defending the $250 fee.

But taking pictures of dead hogs is a ways from terrorism.

Matt Mackall, 30, of Minneapolis, the animal-rights photographer, said, "My suspicion is that feedlot operators would use any excuse to hide the data in question as it is the primary tool used against them by communities fighting their growth. It won't affect our work, because feedlots are easy to find, but it will affect efforts of communities to keep their air and water from being polluted."

Mackall said he's a volunteer for Compassionate Action for Animals, which promotes a vegan lifestyle. "One of our tools for this is documenting conditions on factory farms," he said. "We were taking pictures of hog farming facilities to educate people about the realities of the food they eat."

Mackall, who said he always dresses in black as "a personal quirk," went on to the Ronald Grommersch farm north of Swan Lake, to take photos of the dead hogs.

A neighbor videotaped the picture-taking. Grommersch grabbed a GPS unit from Mackall's car, apparently thinking it was a camera. He asked deputy Joseph Olsen to charge the three activists, even though his land wasn't posted against trespassing.

When the incident was sorted out, Olsen told the three, "I did not want to see them in Nicollet County anymore."

'Black helicopters'

Neither did the County Board, apparently.

With input from the Minnesota Pork Producers Association, the board voted 4 to 0 in April to ask the state to designate feedlot information as nonpublic "security information for reasons of bio-security and bio-terrorism."

Commissioner Jack Kolars of North Mankato abstained. "I'm starting to hear black helicopters around here," he said.

The move just brings more attention to the animal-rights activists, he added last week. "We just went a little bit overboard," he said.

County commissioners in Nobles and neighboring Rock counties asked in May for state legislation to close up the records for old feedlots and alter the public permitting process for new or expanded ones.

But the Legislature didn't act and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency turned down Nicollet County's request.

Under state law, to close data in the name of security requires that disclosure would be "likely to substantially jeopardize the security of information . . . individuals, or property against . . . tampering . . . trespassing, or physical injury," MPCA Commissioner Sheryl Corrigan wrote in June. "A broad application to all data for all feedlots, including location or content does not meet this test."

Besides, it probably wouldn't significantly reduce any threat, Corrigan said.

In fact, said Gordon Wegwart, an assistant commissioner, there's "just a ton" of feedlots in Minnesota, they're easy to spot from the air or driving around, and who knows what's on the Internet? Feedlot maps can still be found through the state's Internet site.

The state keeps records for many counties and would charge only the costs to assemble and print out a list, Wegwart said.

Wait five days

But in June, the Nobles County Board required anyone wanting a feedlot list to fill out an application, wait five days, pay $250 and pick up copies in person -- "a great breakthrough to the food supply industry," the Rock and Nobles Cattlemen's Association Board called it in a letter to the Worthington Globe. "What . . . could be more important than protecting our food supply?"

Patricia Wolff, a Colorado public information researcher who said her father worked in a Worthington packing plant for 20 years, called the policy "clearly discriminatory" because it applies to only one type of information. It "really stinks," she said. "What are county commissioners trying to hide?"

Wolff didn't ask for a feedlot list, but she asked the state commissioner of administration for an advisory opinion to declare the policy illegal.

County Attorney Moore responded that the fee is justified by cost ($75 to produce 104 11-by-17-inch pages that require collating and explaining by staff, as well as dealing with computer crashes and paper jams) and by commercial value ($175 because feed and livestock building salespeople have made inquiries).

There have been inquiries, and people come in every month to examine records about what's going on in their neighborhood, said Wayne Smith, Nobles County environmental services director. There's no charge for examining records without making copies.

But nobody's asked for a copy of the Nobles County list in the past couple of years, even before the fee was specified. Nor have they in Nicollet County, said Tina Rosenstein, environmental services director there.

Rosenstein said there needs to be resolution to the "very, very strange" system under which feedlot records are public when collected by the state or county and nonpublic at the federal level.

Officials express broader concerns, too -- about hoof-and-mouth and other diseases that could infect livestock, about terrorists possibly poisoning food and about strangers trespassing.

Feedlots are readily observable like other facilities, Rosenstein said, but "let's not make it easy for people who want to do us harm."

Jim Peters, an Alexandria lawyer who has fought feedlots, takes the other side: "I think what they're doing on their own feedlots is the biggest threat of all. . . . They're worried about [scrutiny for] land-use regulations and environmental concerns."

Librarian Roberta Hovde contributed research for this article.