Odor, traffic and insects: Neighbors sue Missouri cattle feedlot near Powell Gardens
Fed up with the stench, insects and other quality of life issues, dozens of Jackson County property owners filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a steak company that is trying to add thousands of cattle to its feedlot near Powell Gardens.
The lawsuit contends residents can’t escape the odor emanated by Valley Oaks Steak Co.’s operation in Lone Jack. The company has said it applied for a permit to allow its feedlot to expand from 999 cattle to 6,999.
An Independence-based law firm, Humphrey, Farrington & McClain, said it was representing 141 property owners in the lawsuit filed in Jackson County Circuit Court.
It claims the operation has been a nuisance that will only get worse if the expansion is approved.
One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Kenneth McClain, said the cattle operation would be the largest in Missouri. He said it would be one of only two in the country in which they would have a slaughterhouse and an animal-feeding operation at the same site.
“These people put a factory in the middle of a neighborhood,” McClain said.
The lawsuit also claims the company’s operation illegally housed 1,900 cattle. Valley Oaks was only permitted to keep 999 after a judge granted a preliminary injunction against the company in January as part of another lawsuit, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Valley Oaks officials could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
One of the company’s attorneys, Jean Paul Bradshaw II, said he could not comment until he had read the lawsuit, which had not been officially filed in court as of Tuesday night. But he said there were several inaccuracies in a statement posted on the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ website about the lawsuit.
For example, the lawsuit said concentrated animal feeding operations attract horticultural pests, such as the citrus flatid planthopper. But no expert, Bradshaw said, has testified that the insect is connected to those types of operations.
Valley Oaks executives and the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association have previously said expansion would add dozens of jobs to the area and benefit nearby producers of livestock and grain.
The company’s plan to expand divided Lone Jack, a city of about 1,000 residents about 40 miles southeast of downtown Kansas City.
Hundreds of letters were sent to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in opposition of the proposal.
Shortly after Missouri’s DNR mailed out notices about the feedlot’s request to expand, someone fired gunshots around a family farm of the owner, killing three cows.
Powell Gardens, a botanical garden three miles away in Johnson County, Missouri, has expressed concern that the company’s operation, with its smell and waste runoff, would be a “potential threat to the beauty and peace” of the attraction.
Unlike typical concentrated animal feeding operations, Valley Oaks is expanding on a 420-acre plot in a densely populated area, according to the lawsuit.
Valley Oaks is on the border between Johnson and Jackson counties.
The proposed expansion would have more cattle than existed in all of Jackson County in 2017.
More than 800 homes stand within a three-mile radius of the plant, which counted 2,335 people in the 2010 U.S. Census. And more than 6,400 people live within five miles, according to the lawsuit.
The cattle’s poop, projected by the plaintiffs’ attorneys to be 300 tons a day from nearly 7,000 steers, would be blended with wood chips and stored in a warehouse to be processed into marketable fertilizer. That’s nearly 110,000 tons per year, the lawsuit noted.
Citing a 2010 National Association of Local Boards of Health study, the lawsuit stated that major odor from cattle-feeding operations could travel five to six miles. Many of the plaintiffs can’t avoid the stench from Valley Oaks’ operation even when they are inside with their doors and windows closed, according to the lawsuit.
According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, the company’s planned manure storage facility also “falls woefully short” of state requirements.
Homeowners’ distress within the last year was evident by yard signs that sprouted around Lone Jack urging “Say NO to Valley Oaks” and no to concentrated animal feeding operations.
Among other things, many property owners worry the operation will reduce their property values.
The operation will produce more than 360 pounds of ammonia emissions each day, which could affect the health of those who live nearby, according to the lawsuit. The suit also said the large cattle-feeding operations could cause residents respiratory symptoms.
One of the plaintiffs suing is lung cancer patient Daryn Cashmark, who in 2017 paid $300,000 for a house a mile from the plant. Unaware of Valley Oaks’ expansion plans, he arrived from Independence to benefit from Lone Jack’s fresh air and to provide a permanent place for his wife Lana after his death, he told The Star last year.
Another plaintiff is Rachel Foley, a bankruptcy lawyer who lives in the Rock Lake Village subdivision just east of the feedlot. Among her concerns, she has said, is that the expansion would create traffic hazards on U.S. 50.
The lawsuit accused the defendants, including Valley Oaks Steak Co. and its owner, David Ward, of being a nuisance and trespassing.
In the suit, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said Ward did not have experience running concentrated animal feeding operations. The lawsuit claims Ward has admitted he taught himself how to do it via the internet.
Bradshaw, Valley Oaks’ attorney, said that accusation is misleading. He said the company has put people with experience in raising cattle in charge of the day-to-day operations of the farm.
Launched in 2016, Valley Oaks began with fewer than 999 cattle. The DNR in March issued the company a permit so it could handle up to 6,999 head of cattle, though it could not expand because of the court order.
This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 7:01 PM.
