(FREE PRESS INDIANA) — Charlene Koebcke said “no” when a man seeking support for his proposed factory hog farms offered her a free 30-pound box of pork.
Then she went straight to the Benton County Surveyor’s Office to learn more about Remington Pork LLC’s plans.
In April, just before the pork offer, she had received a letter in the mail from the county attorney about a proposed hog farm. The plan was for a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) on 82 acres of soybean fields next to her 40-acre property. One of three new CAFOs proposed for Benton County, this one would house 8,582 confined pigs that would be fed there about six months before being taken for slaughter. The three farms together would have 26,000 hogs…