American Falls CAFO operators may be worried about nothing at all. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be back with that story in a minute. Dan Hammond is the general manger of Snake River Cattle, 2394 Feed Lot Lane in American Falls and according to an article in journalnet.com he has some concerns about limitations regarding expansion of existing CAFO operations or the potential for opening new ones in Power County. As it stands right now, there are four CAFO operations in the area.

 So what are the regulations that have people concerned. I asked Vicki Meadows, chairwoman of the Power County Commission and she says , in her opinion, there really are none other than that the county requires a 2,640-foot buffer zone between CAFOs and other properties: A new CAFO that would want to come in on site would have to own enough property so that there would be 2640 feet between them and a residence, or should the CAFO be there then anybody that wants to build a residence has to be 2640 feet away from the CAFO in an effort to protect both sides of the issue.”

County officials feel the ordinance takes a middle-ground approach to regulation.