Peoria County Observer Report

The Peoria County Board met on April 11th,their regularly scheduled second Thursday of each month, at 6 p.m
in Room 403 of the County Building with Chairman Andrew Rand presiding. County Board has public 
comments near the beginning of the meeting.
  Two agenda items brought a large number of people and there were many commenting. One topic was a County Board resolution to the Illinois Department of Agriculture (DOA) with four proposals for improvements to the Livestock Management Act. Current state regulations do not allow counties any authority regarding large facilities confining hogs, cows or other animals; counties can only request a public hearing if the number of animals is above
1000 animal units; no assessment of adequate water supply is required for a new CAFO and CAFOs 
have only a .5 mile setback from most towns. 

​The proposed County resolution addressed these points with 
recommendations for improvements. A large CAFO was approved by the state DOA for .58 miles south 
of Princeville and the number of animals was 20 below the requirement for allowing a public hearing.
Many county citizens raised issues to the Board about this, including a rural subdivision that has
concerns about their well water supply. This CAFO will have a new well and use millions of gallons of 
water a day. There was a large number of Farm Bureau members at the meeting and many spoke in 
opposition to the County proposal stating that farmers are stewards of the land and there is no need 
to require any assessment of groundwater or allow any county authority with a vote on location of CAFOs. 
At the meeting the County Board did pass a recommendation that the DOA add a provision to the current
regulations to allow a new minimum setback of 1.5 miles from the corporate limits of a municipality that
has an adopted land use plan and adopted zoning ordinance, with a provision included that the municipality
may waive the setback.
   The second issue that had several public comments regarded funding for the County Auditor's Office, with citizens stating concerns regarding the need for more funding and supporting the Auditor's request for increased funds. The County Board voted to approve an increase of $68,500 for the FY 2019 Auditor's budget, which will allow hiring of additional staff. Currently the Department has only two staff: the Auditor and one assistant.                               Joyce Blumenshine, Observer