Fwd: PLEASE CALL GOVERNOR TODAY Fwd: Montana horse slaughter bill NOT vetoed - NEEDS ACTION

[Guest guest]

PLEASE FORWARD

 

Just a reminder  - Please, please, please  call Montana Governor Schweitzer today (Monday, April 6th)  to ask him to veto the bill that would allow the creation of a horse slaughter facility in Montana.  (406) 444-3111

 

Read this excellent letter from former Mayor Paula Bacon of Kaufman, Texas.  She used to have a foreign owned slaughter house in her town. 

 

Thx - E. Forel/Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages

 

 

 

Former Mayor Paula Bacon    

City of Kaufman    

Kaufman, TX 75142      

RE:

HB

418               

February 12th, 2009       

 

Dear Montana Agriculture Committee Members:    

You

will soon be asked to vote on the subject legislation regarding the

commercial slaughter of American horses of which you probably have very

little first hand knowledge.  No doubt you have heard from

lobbyists and organizations who want you to support the practice, but

before you do, you shou

ld ask yourself why the residents of Texas and

Illinois worked so hard to rid their states of their horse slaughter

plants. The answer may surprise you.

As a mayor who lived with

this plague in her town for many years, who knows what the horse

slaughter industry really is and what it does to a community please

allow me to tell you what we experienced.  The industry caused

significant and long term hardship to my community which was home to

Dallas Crown, one of the last three horse slaughter plants in the

United States.

All three plants were foreign-owned, and since

the market for horsemeat is entirely foreign, the industry will always

be dominated by these foreign interests. The corporations involved in

this industry have consistently proven themselves to be the worst

possible corporate citizens.

The Dallas Crown horse slaughtering

facility had been in operation in Kaufman since the late 70's and from

the beginning had caused problems both economically and

environmentally.  I have listed some of the specific issues below.

I

will gladly provide you with detailed reports from my former City

Manager, Police Chief, and Public Works Director regarding odor and

wastewater effluence violations at the Dallas Crown horse slaughter

plant in the City of Kaufman..  The reports reference “decaying

meat [which] provides a foul odor and is an attraction for vermin and

carrion,†containers conveyed “uncovered and leaking liquids,†there

are “significant=2

0foul odors during the daily monitoring of the area,â€

and  “Dallas Crown continually neglects to perform within the

standards required of them.â€

Therefore, in August of 2005, our

City Council decided by unanimous decision to send the Dallas Crown

issue to the Board of Adjustments for termination of their

non-conforming use status.  In March of 2006, the Board of

Adjustments voted to order Dallas Crown closed, but the plant was able

to tie the enforcement up in the courts until they were finally closed

under state law in February of 2007.

Dallas Crown repeatedly

described itself as a “good corporate citizen.â€Â  I will be

straightforward in asserting that they are the very antithesis of

such. 

• Dallas Crown had a very long history of

violations to their industrial waste permit, ‘loading’ the capacity of

the wastewater treatment plant.

• Dallas Crown denied the City

access to their property for wastewater testing beginning October 1,

2004 until July 6, 2005, despite requirement by city ordinance, city

permit agreement, and court order.

• City staff reported that a

$6 million upgrade to our wastewater treatment plant would be required

even though the plant was planned and financed to last through 2015.

•

Odor problems resulting from the outside storage of offal and hides

over several days persisted not only in traditionally African-American

neighborhood known as “Boggy=2

0Bottomâ€, but at the nearby Presbyterian

Hospital, the daycare center, and surrounding areas.

• Transport of offal and fresh hides on City and state thoroughfares is conducted in leaking containers without covers.

•

City documents reveal an extended history of efforts to have Dallas

Crown address various environmental issues.  Reports include

descriptive language including such as “blood flowing east and west in

the ditches from your plant,†“It has been over 45 days [it had been 59

days] and no apparent cleanup has occurred,†“Your system has not

improved and subsequently it has gotten a lot worse,†“Words cannot

express the seriousness†of  recent violations and the “adverse

effects on the wastewater treatment plant,†and “Please be sure

trailers are secured before leaving your premises to prevent spills,â€

noting also “bones and blood laying in front of the facility,†problems

with bones and parts in neighboring yards and the attraction of “dogs

and other animals.â€

• In response to 29 citations for wastewater

violations, each accompanied by a potential fine of $2,000, Dallas

Crown requested 29 separate jury trials, potentially causing yet

another economic strain to the City’s budget.  We could, of

course, not afford to litigate in order to extract the fines

•

Dallas Crown took 11 months to submit a mandatory “sludge control planâ€0Ato assist efficient operation of the wastewater treatment plant though

City staff requested it orally and in writing many times.

• The

City Manager advised me that the City would have to spend $70,000 in

legal fees because of Dallas Crown problems, which was the entire legal

budget for the fiscal year.

• During this period, Dallas Crown

paid property taxes that were less than half of what the City spent on

legal fees directly related to Dallas Crown violations.

• Generally, Dallas Crown has the economic ability to prevail, to exceed the constraints of the City’s budget.

Dallas

Crown had a negative effect on the development of surrounding

properties, and a horse slaughter plant is a stigma to the development

of our city generally. I have since learned that these problems were

mirrored at the other two plants.  Fort Worth’s Beltex horse

slaughter plant also violated Ft. Worth’s wastewater regulations

several times, clogged sewer lines, and both spilled and pumped blood

into a nearby creek (San Antonio Current, June 19, 2003 ).  Texas

state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, whose district includes Beltex,

and Rep. Toby Goodman, R-Arlington, fought hard against legislation

that would have legalized horse slaughter in Texas in 2003.

The

horse slaughter plant in DeKalb , IL had a similar pattern.  It

was destroyed by fire in 2002, and rebuilt in 2004.  It was

charged and fined by the DeKalb Sanitary District almost every month

from the reopening until its closing in 2007 under a new state law for

consistently exceeding wastewater discharge guidelines.  I can

provide you with the documentation of those violations.  Like

Dallas Crown, Cavel refused to pay their fines for years.

During

this time, I learned that an estimated $5 million in Federal funding

was being spent annually to support three foreign-owned horse slaughter

plants!  And when the Dallas Crown tax records were exposed in the

city’s legal struggle, we found that they had paid only $5 in federal

taxes on a gross income of over $12,000,000!

More over, the

parent company of Cavel has since moved its operations to Canada and

continued to slaughter American horses.  In Canada they have

apparently become even more blatant, dumping huge untreated piles of

entrails onto open ground and even using a tanker truck to discharge

blood and refuse into a local river.

I have mentioned only the

pollution issue, but this is but one negative aspect of horse

slaughter.  I have subsequently learned of a USDA document

containing 900 pages of graphic photos that show the horrors that the

horses were subject to.  Behind the privacy fences of these

plants, trucks arrived continuously and on those trucks was every form

of inhumane violation one can imagine from mares birthing foals to

horses with eyes dangling from their sockets and legs ripped from their

bodies.

The more I learn about horse slaughter, the more certai

n

I am: There is no justification for horse slaughter in this

country.  My city was little more than a door mat for a

foreign-owned business that drained our resources, thwarted economic

development and stigmatized our community.  Americans don't eat

horses, and we don't raise them for human consumption. There is no

justification for spending American tax dollars to support this

industry at the expense of Americans and our horses.

Sincerely,     

 

Former Mayor Paula Bacon     

Kaufman, TX

 

 

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------

 

 

 

PLEASE FORWARD

 

 

 

HORSE SLAUGHTER BILL NOT VETOED – STILL NEEDS ACTION.  Recently there was a post to AR-News, which

unfortunately stated that the horse slaughter bill in Montana was vetoed by the

governor.  IT WAS NOT!.  Instead this is what happened and the issue

still requires your action. 

 

On Friday, April 3rd, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer returned

House Bill 418 to the Legislature with suggestions for amendments. The danger

is that the amendments will be made and the bill will be signed into law. PLEASE

TAKE ACTION. We must keep the pressure on the governor to VETO this bill.

Call the governor's office at (406) 444-3111 and ask him to veto it.   Tell the governor's office that (live)

horses are a symbol of the American West and Montana should not want to be

known as the horse slaughter capitol of the country.

 

Please read this excellent and compelling letter by former Mayor

Paula Bacon about the disastrous effects of having a slaughter facility in her hometown

of Kaufman, Texas.  The letter was

written to the Montana legislature. 

 

letter    http://banhdc.org/archives/ch-hor-20090212.shtml      Copy and paste into your browser.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Forel   / Co

alition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages / www.banhdc.org