Strathclair hog barn operator not in compliance with laws - Hogwatch Manitoba

Dear Editor,

Politics, not law, are driving Yellowhead Council’s response to 

Hog Watch Manitoba’s revelations about a hog barn expansion 

near Strathclair.  

(See B.G. story, here.)

Claims that its “investigation” reveals the operator was “found to 

be in compliance with laws and regulations” as reported in the 

October 24 Brandon Sun are false.

Council’s informal plan to have taxpayers pay someone to count 

the Maple Leaf-owned pigs at this so-called family farm is a 

diversion designed to give the offender time to fix problems 

documented by Hog Watch. Counting pigs helps them evade their 

responsibility to regulate on the maximum number and type of pigs 

a barn can hold. 

Governments’ honour system has led to the approval of a new barn 

without making sure there is sufficient capacity to store 

manure.  Only after the barn was built, over a thousand pigs put in

 it this spring, Hog Watch sounded an alarm and municipal 

officials spoke to the operator, was an application made for a 

provincial manure storage expansion permit.

 The law is that any size of operation using earthen manure 

storages have at least 400 days storage capacity. This operator’s 

engineer October 5 letter to Council admits current storage 

capacity is only 253 days and an application for a provincial 

permit submitted only recently.  There was no mention if a water 

rights licence had been submitted or obtained since Hog Watch 

intervened.

When the building application was made, the law required all 

expanding pig operations, big or small, to file manure management 

plans.  This provided some check on having enough suitable 

manure spread lands.  It is now obvious why the Pallister 

government eliminated this rule.  It makes it easier and cheaper for 

the hog industry to expand.  It exposes people to the effects of 

environmental and surface water nutrient pollution from the hog 

industry.  

Council ignored their own Zoning By-Law regarding required 

spread lands. While the engineer’s manipulation of pig numbers 

down to 297 Animal Units (AUs) appears to justify the operator 

not having to go through a conditional use hearing and provincial 

technical review (triggered at 300 AUs), the zoning by-law clearly 

states any livestock operation producing over 75 animal units of 

manure has to “provide enough suitable land… to dispose of the 

manure in a fashion which will not pollute the land.”  Counting 

pigs can’t fix these violations of the law.  

 
Wim Verbruggen publicly asserted in the Sun that I, acting on 

behalf of Hog Watch is telling “lies, lies, lies.” The evidence 

speaks for itself. Just like evidence heard by Oakview Council 

from a local resident during the conditional use hearing on his 

2016 proposal for a 6000 head-capacity finisher operation that was 

rejected. The manure storage site selected and sanctioned by a 

different engineer, was shown to be illegal. A fact ignored by the 

Provincial Technical Review Committee.  Another provincial rule 

change now allows such manure storages to be built on such 

surface watercourses by simply calling them something else.

Governments’ job is to regulate the hog industry by putting the 

public interest first. The honour system, ignoring facts and the law 

while attempting to count pigs to give an offender time to become 

compliant after-the-fact is dangerous practice and sends a troubling 

message to the industry.  You can break the law and if you get 

caught, we’ll help fix it for you. This approach rewards 

lawbreakers, rather than prosecuting them and does nothing to 

protect people and the environment.

Ruth Pryzner

Hog Watch member

Living Planet Report 2018 - Bad News for the World’s Wildlife.

World Wildlife Fund

We are pushing our planet to the brink. Human activity—how we feed, fuel, and finance our lives—is taking an unprecedented toll on wildlife, wild places, and the natural resources we need to survive. On average, we’ve seen an astonishing 60% decline in the size of populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians in just over 40 years, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2018. Story here.

Carnage on our roads is surely a significant factor as well.

Maggots swarm over the carcass of an animal killed on the highway.

Roadkill litters a busy highway in Manitoba as the wheels of commerce
(and the carnage), keep on rolling. PinP photos.

Cry me a river: Low water levels causing chaos in Germany

Phys.org

A river boat in Cologne. CE photo, Uwe Aranas

A new island in Lake Constance. A river in Berlin flowing backward. Dead fish on the banks of lakes and ponds. Barges barely loaded so they don't run aground. More here.

Scientists, environmentalists brace for Brazil's right turn

Science

Slash-and-burn forest clearing along the Xingu River in Brazil.
A NASA satellite photo.

Beset by economic woes and dissatisfied with the left-wing politicians in power for most of the past 15 years, Brazil appears poised to make a hard turn and elect a far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, as its next president. His rapid ascent has unnerved local researchers, who worry about the future of Brazilian science, the protection of the country's biodiversity, and its role in the global struggle against climate change. Bolsonaro has vowed to withdraw Brazil from the 2015 Paris agreement, which requires nations to reduce greenhouse emissions to combat climate change, and he plans to eliminate the Ministry of the Environment and fold its duties into the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply. 

Download the PDF here.

European parliament approves curbs on use of antibiotics on farm animals

TheGuardian

Move is aimed at halting the spread of ‘superbugs’ resistant to medical treatment. Details here.

RELATED: Starting this December, Canadian farmers will need a prescription to obtain veterinary antibiotics for their livestock. According to a retired University of Guelph professor, John Prescott, the federal regulatory changes mean the agriculture industry will be required to play its part in reducing the use of antibiotics here and around the world. More here.

The owl, the mouse and the murrelet. How manmade climate change could be pushing species to the brink in ways rarely imagined.

by Larry Powell

A Scripp's murrelet chick (Synthliboramphus scrippsi). Humans hunted its cousin, 
the Great Auk, to extinction in the 18 hundreds. A U.S. Nat'l. Park Service photo.

A new study finds, complex changes in climate are threatening yet another species - this time a little diving seabird known as the Scripp's murralet (above). But this time, it isn't because of direct impacts  from severe weather events, as is often the case. Rather, it is how those events are interfering with traditional interactions between a predator, the barn owl (below) and its two main prey, the deer mouse and the murralet. The three species breed on the channel islands, off the coast of California. The study focused on Santa Barbara, the smallest.

Barn owl (Tyto alba). Photo by Peter K. Burian.

In-depth research by two American and two Canadian scientists, documents a fascinating but insidious train of events that could  be leading to the little seabird's demise. During prolonged, torrential rainfalls, vegetation on the island flourishes, providing plenty of food for island populations such as the deer mouse (below). This is quickly followed by a spike in barn owl numbers, the mouse's main predator. But when droughts set in, mice populations plummet. Apparently as a survival instinct, the owl then turns to the murralet. Estimates are that, at such times, the owls consume 15 times more murralet's than before. So, in this seemingly unjust scenario, when the mice diminish, it's the murralet, not the owl, which seems to pay the higher price.

Deer mouse. Peromyscus maniculatus.
Photo by Gregory "Siobirdr" Smith.

The Scripp's murralet is listed as "vulnerable" with, at most, 650 breeding pairs left on the island. Their numbers are believed to be declining and the scientists fear, because of this so-called  "hyperpredation," they may be headed for extinction.

But this disturbing prognosis may not be confined to Santa Barbara. Many ecosystems share the same set of conditions, where more than one species share a common predator. So it's feared the Santa Barbara experience may be set to repeat itself elsewhere, as well.

A condition known as "El Niño /Southern Oscillation, (ENSO)" is believed to be playing a role here. El Niños  have been naturally-occurring phenomena for hundreds of years (warming the Pacific ocean off South America and affecting weather events, worldwide). But some recent studies conclude El Niños, too, may be becoming more intense and numerous because of manmade climate change. So, rather than occurring roughly once every 20 years, we might expect El Niños closer to one every decade. This does not bode well for species like the murralet.

The study was published this week by The Royal Society. The lead author of the study was Prof. S. Thomsen of Simon Fraser University, B.C.   

Mayor denies news report that a controversial Manitoba hog barn northwest of Brandon has been declared "legal." Newspaper rejects any suggestion of journalistic bias.

by Larry Powell

What the fuss is all about. A PinP photo.

The mayor of the RM of Yellowhead, Don Yanick is denying yesterday's headline story in the local newspaper, Crossroads This Week,  (see CTW story, below). It reads, "Hog Barn Found to be Legal." First of all, says Yanick, Council will not be declaring the operation "legal," even if an inspection clears the owner. (It will simply be allowed to proceed.) So, the bottom line is, the matter is still pending and will be discussed again at the next council meeting on Oct. 23rd.

The building in question is a "finisher barn," where mature hogs are prepared for market. It's located in the eastern part of the RM, near the Village of Strathclair. It became controversial when the citizens' group, Hogwatch Manitoba, brought a formal complaint in September to the Yellowhead council.

The complaint alleged the owner, Wim Verbruggen, had built a larger barn than stated in his original application for a building permit, bypassing several regulations and bylaws in the process. Ruth Pryzner of Hogwatch says there should have been a public hearing and provincial technical review. Neither was held. She also questioned whether proper procedures have been taken to ensure adequate manure storage and water management. She called on the RM to take punitive action, including possible closure.

But Yanick tells PinP, Verbruggen has since assured council the number of animals he intended to raise in a larger, approved building meets legal requirements. On the basis of that assurance, Yanick says it appears the owner "followed our rules" and that there was no need for a hearing. Nevertheless, he says council decided on Oct. 9th, to "definitely" find an "independent person" at taxpayers' expense and verify the actual number of pigs in the barns. At the time of this writing, however, that person has not yet been appointed.

Also, it may be tough to get that independent person into the barn, in the first place. Barn owners can invoke special "biosecurity" requirements, such as "showering in and showering out" to guard against the spread of disease. Whether the owner has the power to forbid entry altogether, is unclear. The Mayor believes the inspection could depend on whether Verbruggen even "allows us in."

Pryzner says regulation must determine the most number of animals that can be housed in the original barns (Verbruggen's "iso-wean" operations which have been there for years) and the addition now at the centre of the controversy. She adds, "If a disease outbreak occurred and all animals removed, the building capacity remains the same." The manure storage permit the province issued in 2001 for that original operation is proof that barn capacity must guide regulatory decision-making, not animals present at any given time. "Local governments are not supposed to be in the business of counting pigs," she added.

Despite the fact this whole issue is not yet resolved, the newspaper story describes the Hogwatch allegations as "unwarranted swipes against a family farming operation." The remark was not directly attributed to Verbruggen, but seemed to appear more as an editorial comment.  

Greg Nesbitt, MLA

Crossroads This Week was originally put out out by Nesbitt Publishing in 1977 by Greg Nesbitt, now the Conservative MLA for the area.

Although a Google search still lists the politician as "publisher," his son, Ryan says that is incorrect. He says his father has not been publisher for years and that he (Ryan), now fulfills that role. 

A subsequent search lists Greg Nesbitt as "manager" of the company.

The majority Conservative Government, of which Greg Nesbitt is a member, has been pressing forward for well over a year now with an ambitious program to expand Manitoba's hog industry. It has done this through deregulation - doing away with rules designed to protect health and the environment - a process the government calls "red tape reduction."

In an e-mail to PinP, Ryan Nesbitt claims, his father no longer has anything to do with the paper's day-to-day operations and strongly rejects any suggestion of journalistic bias which this story may have raised. "We are just a small town newspaper trying to do its job," Nesbitt concludes.

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"In Hogs We Trust."  

A critique of Manitoba’s “runaway” hog industry.

Part 1 - Antibiotic Overuse.

Part 11 - The price we pay for corporate pig$. 

Part 111 - From Malaysia to Manitoba - the global magnitude of livestock diseases.

Part 1V - The health and environmental costs of an expanded hog industry.

Part V - What’s behind Manitoba’s drive to expand?