Stand up against Industrial Chicken Factories!
Donation protected
We need your help! We are the Lancaster Hills Alliance (LHA), a small group of united neighbors and concerned citizens in southeastern Nebraska. We are fighting to stop a poultry CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) from being built among our beautiful small farms, pastures, and homes in the rolling hills west of Lincoln.
Costco (through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Lincoln Premium Poultry) has a brand-new slaughterhouse ready to “process” 400,000 chickens each week, once enough people in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa have agreed to contract with them to “grow” Costco’s chickens for slaughter on 6-week cycles.
On September 11, 2018, the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 to allow a poultry CAFO to be built in the middle of our neighborhood. This CAFO will grow chickens in four 600-foot barns and send to slaughter approximately 190,000 chickens every six weeks. The 5200 tons of manure will be hauled away only once a year, so these cycles of chickens will be living in their own “treated” excrement. The chickens that die will be tossed into an outdoor open shed to decompose, which will draw predators and breed flies. This will dramatically change the quality of life in our neighborhood.
The Lancaster County Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners approved the permit for this CAFO without requiring Costco-LPP to submit an Operations Plan beforehand and even though BOTH agencies AGREED that the existing regulations are inadequate. In fact, AFTER they approved the permit for this CAFO, they unanimously passed a resolution to set up a Task Force to figure out how to improve those regulations! Better regulations are needed to protect our air, soils and aquifer from contamination and overdraft. We provided evidence that this CAFO will reduce our quality of life, damage the county roads, create a large odor footprint, decrease our property values by at least 26 percent, and potentially damage our health.
Even though our objections outnumbered supporting comments by an overwhelming margin, our local elected officials voted in favor of big business and against local farmers and homeowners. Our only remaining option to protect our families, our health, our land, and our property values was to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit to overturn the County’s permit approvals. We are facing an uphill and expensive battle, but we know in our minds and our hearts that we are right: the proposed industrial-sized chicken-growing factory in the midst of our farms and semi-urban homes is unfair and wrong! Imagine how you would feel if you were under such a threat.
We really do need your help. Funds will go toward legal expenses and expenses related to this fight. Please donate to this page so that we can afford to continue to fight industrial factory chicken growing in our own neighborhood, and surrounding local communities.
Costco (through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Lincoln Premium Poultry) has a brand-new slaughterhouse ready to “process” 400,000 chickens each week, once enough people in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa have agreed to contract with them to “grow” Costco’s chickens for slaughter on 6-week cycles.
On September 11, 2018, the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 to allow a poultry CAFO to be built in the middle of our neighborhood. This CAFO will grow chickens in four 600-foot barns and send to slaughter approximately 190,000 chickens every six weeks. The 5200 tons of manure will be hauled away only once a year, so these cycles of chickens will be living in their own “treated” excrement. The chickens that die will be tossed into an outdoor open shed to decompose, which will draw predators and breed flies. This will dramatically change the quality of life in our neighborhood.
The Lancaster County Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners approved the permit for this CAFO without requiring Costco-LPP to submit an Operations Plan beforehand and even though BOTH agencies AGREED that the existing regulations are inadequate. In fact, AFTER they approved the permit for this CAFO, they unanimously passed a resolution to set up a Task Force to figure out how to improve those regulations! Better regulations are needed to protect our air, soils and aquifer from contamination and overdraft. We provided evidence that this CAFO will reduce our quality of life, damage the county roads, create a large odor footprint, decrease our property values by at least 26 percent, and potentially damage our health.
Even though our objections outnumbered supporting comments by an overwhelming margin, our local elected officials voted in favor of big business and against local farmers and homeowners. Our only remaining option to protect our families, our health, our land, and our property values was to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit to overturn the County’s permit approvals. We are facing an uphill and expensive battle, but we know in our minds and our hearts that we are right: the proposed industrial-sized chicken-growing factory in the midst of our farms and semi-urban homes is unfair and wrong! Imagine how you would feel if you were under such a threat.
We really do need your help. Funds will go toward legal expenses and expenses related to this fight. Please donate to this page so that we can afford to continue to fight industrial factory chicken growing in our own neighborhood, and surrounding local communities.
Organizer
Marina Barrett
Organizer
Crete, NE