About 700 people packed the Ventura High School Gymnasium last night as the “Concerned Neighbors Coalition” held a meeting on a proposed egg-laying facility that would house two-and-a-half million chickens near Clear Lake. Several speakers stood up and asked that more authority be given to local governments instead of the state. Clear Lake resident David Okerlund was among the many asking that a one or two-year moratorium be placed on construction of large-scale livestock facilities.Okerlund says legislators need to start solving the issues of factory farms now.Iowa Senator Betty Soukup, a democrat from New Hampton, has offered legislation that would place a moratorium on further construction. Soukup says the state and local governments need to protect the reasons Iowa is the leader in the nation in agriculture. Officials with the Department of Natural Resources say that they have not received a permit application for a chicken facility to be built.
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