Feedlot lawsuit gains more momentum

The embattled feedlot controversy involving Blooming Prairie area farmers is gaining more momentum as a coalition of the nation’s leading environmental, public health and animal protection groups have joined the legal fight.
Several groups have joined a lifelong family farmer’s legal efforts to address what they allege are negative impacts associated with factory farms. Lowell and Evelyn Trom of rural Blooming Prairie initiated the legal action more than two years ago to protect their land, home, health, livelihoods and the future of their family on a generational farm where Trom was born 87 years ago. 
In an unprecedented action last week, professionals affiliated with John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Environment Minnesota, Food and Water Watch, The Humane Society of the United States and Animal Legal Defense Fund filed briefs with the Minnesota Court of Appeals. 
The appeals court is considering an appeal of a Dodge County District Court ruling that upheld Dodge County’s issuance of a Conditional Use Permit to Masching Swine Farms for a hog feedlot on property adjacent to the Troms in Westfield Township.
The groups have volunteered their time to help inform the court about the multiple dangers posed by industrial-scale corporate factory animal-production operations like the facility at issue in the Trom case. Dodge County’s approval of the Masching facility paves the