IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 5
Corporate farm operations seek limited liability contracts
with vulnerable communities.People often use a corporate
form of doing business in this industry to avoid the
consequences of environmental and economic damages.
With a 'limited liability partnership,' the short-term and
long-term environmental damages will revert to the Tribe.
The next generations of tribal members will end up paying.
In fall 1998, tribal members and white Mellette County ranchers formed
Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens (CRAC). South Dakota Peace and
Justice Center sought help from the Indigenous Environmental Network
(IEN), an "alliance" of Native American community-based groups, tribal
communities, tribal environmental staff, and others. The IEN assisted
CRAC members to travel to a Baton Rouge, LA, meeting of the EPA
National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), where they
obtained NEJAC support of the Rosebud tribal hog farm issue as an
"environmental justice issue." 62
In fall 1998, the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),
which oversees NEPA, became involved and started to express concerns
regarding the project's compliance with NEPA. In November 1998, CEQ
convened meetings with staff from the BIA, EPA, and Department of
Justice regarding the Bell Farms issue. 63 In an internal memorandum
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Nancy Hilding,
President of the Prairie Hills Audubon Society, a CEQ staff member
analyzed aspects of RESPEC's Environmental Assessment and concluded
that the FONSI "appears to violate the letter and purpose of NEPA." 64
On November 23, 1998, CRAC, the Prairie Hills Audubon Society, South
Dakota Peace and Justice Center, and the Humane Farming Association
the litigants brought suit in Federal District Court in Washington, DC,
against the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. At issue was BIA's approval of
the land use by the project despite what the groups identified as violations
of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) during the
environmental assessment process. 65
On December 11, 1998, Alan Bakeberg, Natural Resources Engineer with
the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources,
wrote a scathing ten-page criticism of the hog factory plans and the
proposed environmental mitigation measures, disputing whether the waste
management system would work as described by Bell Farms, BIA, and the
RST. 66 Bakeberg also noted that both the EA and the BIA's FONSI had
stated that the State of South Dakota standards would be used as design
guidelines and that the State would be allowed to review and comment on
the design prior to construction. However, despite the fact that Bell Farms
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