Humane, environmental groups to meet

An environmental group met last night in Klemme to talk about what they say are unfair tax breaks for big livestock producers. The Humane Society’s Chris Bedford says mega-sized hog lots get an exemption from a part of their farm’s property tax. He calls it a tax “subsidy” and says they don’t pay what he calls county, school or community-college taxes on the part of the farm where manure is stored. Just like scrubbers in the chimney of a factory, the manure pits that prevent runoff into water supplies are sheltered from a percentage of the farm’s property tax as an environmental exemption, according to Bedford. He says bigger farms that pay bigger taxes get a bigger exemption which isn’t fair. The group met with “Concerned Neighbors of Hancock County” to call for a $100 cap on property tax exemptions for animal farm waste pits. He says it’s a pollution-control device and says in 2002, about $171 Million in taxes “were taken off the books” for the waste-pit exemption. He cites a $20 Million facility being built in Kossuth County that he says will “probably try to hide” up to $9 Million of its value in the waste-pit exemption. The Humane Society of the U-S says local advocates agree the manure-pit property-tax exemption should be capped at $100.