From my mailbox:
New Survey: Sioux Falls Residents Raise Alarm on Mega-Slaughterhouse
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota – Citizens for a Sustainable Sioux Falls (CSSF), a community network dedicated to preserving the spirit of Sioux Falls and the beauty of its natural resources, today released the results of a new poll capturing local views on plans for a major new hog processing plant just off Interstate 229. The survey, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies in February, found that three-quarters of registered voters in Sioux Falls want to hit the brakes on a proposal by Nebraska-based Wholestone Farms to open a 170-acre complex to process six million hogs annually within city limits.
“Sioux Falls continues to grow as the economic and cultural hub for our region, but residents don’t want to jeopardize that bright future with short-range thinking,” said CSSF executive director and Sioux Falls native Robert Peterson. “The vast majority of local voters shared serious concerns about the impact of a massive new slaughterhouse inside our city on odor, traffic, water quality, housing, and other issues. They want city leaders to protect our quality of life and our future ability to attract high-skilled, high-wage jobs.”
Before being presented with any arguments, the survey of 300 registered voters found that 81% of residents felt the proposed slaughterhouse would negatively impact odors in Sioux Falls, while 67% of residents felt it would negatively impact the availability of housing. Majorities also agreed it would negatively impact water quality, traffic and congestion, and property values. A full 75% agreed with the statement that, “City leaders should halt the project until more study is done on the impact to property values, traffic, and living conditions.” Even more, 78%, would support requiring any new slaughterhouse to be located outside of city limits.
“Given the city’s long-time efforts to combat contamination in the Big Sioux River and foul odors in our neighborhoods, it’s clear why residents want to keep up to six million hog carcasses away from our homes, businesses, and schools,” added Peterson. “Sioux Falls is our home and an increasingly attractive location for many new families and professionals. We can keep it that way by placing a moratorium on this project while more study is done, citizens’ concerns are heard, and better locations are considered.”
Additional results are available in a memo from Public Opinion Strategies linked here.
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ABOUT US: Citizens for a Sustainable Sioux Falls highlights the voices of community leaders, employers, and local residents who share a passion for ensuring that Sioux Falls remains the best little city in America to live, work, open a business, or raise a family. Our work aims to ensure Sioux Falls continues to grow as a thriving center of commerce, culture, and technology by preserving the spirit of our community and the beauty of its natural resources. Learn more at CitizensForASustainableSiouxFalls.com.
So who is involved with this latest mystery group and how/why did it end up on this site?
They got any billboards up yet?
too close to someone’s mansion so they’re pushing back
Interesting development. The org’s website doesn’t have an “About Us” page identifying its leadership or donors. A WHOIS inquiry reveals little other than the fact that the site was created last month and all information is controlled by GoDaddy.com.
The mayor has said that city government is largely powerless to regulate the new processing plant, as the land in question is zoned appropriately already and the processor doesn’t need any major city approvals to build and operate.
Another interesting fact to consider. About one-third of Smithfield’s (formerly John Morrell’s) hogs in the Sioux Falls plant come from members of the Wholestone Foods cooperative. A new cooperative-owned plant will place stress on Smithfield, both in terms of hog supply and workforce availability (one can only assume that Wholestone members will choose to ship to their cooperative’s plant rather than to Smithfield). In short, it may well not be in Smithfield’s business interests to see Wholestone establish a competing plant in Sioux Falls. NOTE: hog supply has been a persistent (decades-long) problem for the Sioux Falls pork processing plant.
Meanwhile, some of the “moneyed interests” have long believed that Morrell/Smithfield’s plant represented an impediment to midscale and upscale economic development in and near downtown Sioux Falls. Moving hog processing out of the city center (assuming Wholestone could precipitate the closure of the Smithfield plant) could improve development opportunities and land prices in downtown Sioux Falls.
Another factor to consider is that Smithfield’s Sioux Falls location is unionized, whereas Wholestone would be far less likely to be unionized. Arguably, this means that the union could easily be anti-Wholestone.
There are many twists and turns to this story, and motivations on both/all sides might not be obvious.
They should build it near the HOGS not our HOMES!
Exactly.
When I was at Falls Park two days ago, the smell was very strong. Hey all you visitors, welcome to Sioux Falls!
There are times when you can smell it on the south side of town. So yea… why not add another one?
I looked at the satellite map, where they plan to put it. Nobody’s living out there. The only thing there is the Sioux Falls Humane Society.
It isn’t in anybody’s back yard, and the interstate access makes it good for trucks.
The city is growing fast and the smell and activity impact homes and businesses for miles. This thing needs to be at least three or four miles from town.
We will be the city renowned for its stinky pork plants. Some folks already think that when visiting the downtown area or Falls Park.
A second hog slaughter plant in Sioux Falls would quickly turn into Sewer Falls! It makes sense to move it out of town at least. The current location is right as you come into town from the east off the interstate. It would stink up the Sanford HQ and all the other businesses right around there. There’s got to be better locations in the region!
That’s right, move it to someone elses backyard.
What… you want maximum number of people impacted? Why smell up one or two properties when you can stink up 50,000? I grew up on a farm and that doesn’t make any sense to me.
One or two homeowners or farmers can be compensated if this puts a burden on them. The plants obviously have to go somewhere.
Can’t believe the City is ok with this. Our current administration and past have spent years growing Sioux falls the right way and building our reputation as a great place to live. Adding a 2nd slaughter house simply will have an adverse affect on the momentum our great city has made in the past 15 years.
Something to consider with the arrival of the Pork plant. Smell (not only the slaughter house itself but the 100’s of trucks bringing in thousands of hogs a day) logistics (that many trucks will completely bog down traffic coming off of 229 and cause significant delays to all the folks trying to get to work. It’s the busiest exit in town during rush hour) , noise, water pollution(location runs into Sioux river) work force (they plan to decimate Smithfield’s workforce) and housing (at a time when we are already on a housing crisis) so again I wonder, how does this benefit our city?
I don’t disagree but the GOP rallying cry has always been “jobs jobs jobs” why not now?
Purely anecdotal, but I’ve talked to a fair amount of people about this project. Not a single one of them thought the facility should be built in the proposed location. Glad to see some organized opposition, if only to have an actual public debate about the issue.
As a person who spends a ton of time up at Great Bear park both in the winter and summer with my family, I’d hate to have the smell of a slaughterhouse ruining one of our city’s nicest parks/venues
The technology on a brand new plant would make this so much different than Smithfield. There’s no reason not to have this in SF other than NIMBYism.
And like has been noted, this location is zoned properly for this facility so there is very little the City can do, even if they wanted to be anti-growth.
How will this new “technology” reduce the odor from the thousands of hogs being transported to the facility by truck every day?
Funny, we’re still waiting for anon to explain how new “technology” will reduce the odor from thousands of hogs being transported by truck everyday. (We’re smart enough to know that there is absolutely no technology that exists that can curb the kind of odor that comes from offal, wastewater lagoons, etc.)
Odor aside, we’ll still have to deal with terrible traffic congestion, polluting of grounds/water, noise, housing shortages and a host of other issues that one finds in a meatpacking/slaughterhouse community. And, can someone tell me: where are all the employees going to come from? (I’ve heard they already have offices set up in Mexico to recruit.)
It’s unfortunate that city leaders seem to have forgotten that their job TODAY is to create the Sioux Falls of TOMORROW. Smithfield isn’t going away – its a huge corporation with a good balance sheet that has just invested millions in capital improvement projects. Never, in all the years that I have been a SF citizen, did I think the Sioux Falls of tomorrow would be Sewer City. What a shame.
This survey doesn’t surprise me.
Why on Earth would anyone think it wise to put another one of these in city limits – when the first one should be moved out of town when possible?
Squeeling pigs going to their death and the smell of whatever in the air? I have biked by many times and I have experienced both quite often.
In my opinion, Smithfield has been fouling the air more than it has in a while. For years, they had a slight odor. But the last two times I went by, it was really pungent.
Sioux Falls residents are not going to forget it if officials allow this to be constructed in that location. I want to know how this decision came to be. A lot of questions need answering. And everyone I talk to feels the same.
That smell carries for miles. They need to buy a large plot of land near a good road, put some trees around it and whatever else it takes to mitigate the impact.
Just use some common sense.
One only needs looking at the fluffy white foam bubbling up everywhere in the Falls Park region to understand this problem of water contamination is much larger than any one area of current public discourse.
Finding a way to siphon out the phosphorus from the water upstream becomes more relevant every day.