Courts

Sorry, You Live Next To Pig Poop Now

Pennsylvania court rules that locals can't stop the new pig farm.

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A court deciding how much pig manure the locals are forced to live with could be a metaphor for our times. It seems at every turn the courts are deciding just how much pig sh*t Trump is allowed to shovel upon the country.

But, it’s not a metaphor. There’s an actual appellate case where a Pennsylvania court had to weigh in on pig sh*t ordinances. From the ABA Journal:

In the majority opinion, Justice Max Baer wrote that officials in Montour Township in Columbia County overstepped their authority by asking Scott Sponenberg to provide legally binding assurances that his proposed operation of 4,800 pigs would not have adverse impacts—such as ground and surface water contamination, noise and odors—on neighbors.

The township’s adverse impact rules are stricter than the requirements of Pennsylvania’s Nutrient Management Act, which regulates manure handling operations on farms, Baer said.

Yes, you read that right. Ruling that Pennsylvania’s Nutrient Management Act preempts stricter local requirements is the majority opinion. There was also a dissent. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court could not even get itself on the same page as to how much pig manure is allowable by law:

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Kevin M. Dougherty wrote that he would have upheld the lower court’s decision.

The majority’s ruling that Sponenberg’s proposed operation is excused from Nutrient Management Act requirements and local regulations is “untenable,” Dougherty said.

“It is based upon a flawed statutory construction analysis that undermines this court’s jurisprudence with regard to preemption principles and curtails long-established municipal authority to ‘make such additional regulations’ in furtherance of state law as are reasonable and appropriate to the needs of the particular locality,” he wrote.

You know what, I think I’m on the dissent’s side. I’m no expert on pig poop, but I tend to favor preemption only as a floor and not a ceiling, especially when it comes to the environment. A statewide law can propose the minimum standards all must reach, but if a locality wants to impose additional regulations, I don’t think the statewide law should prevent that from happening. Maybe my town has just a little lower tolerance for crap than yours?

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Pig manure (all manure) is an environmental hazard. Also, I’m not sure if everybody knows this, it smells bad! NIMBYism is a problem I’m generally only concerned about when it comes human health and safety problems. We need prisons and methadone clinics and the like. But we don’t need pig farms. Using preemption to prevent a community from having stronger regulations — OVER SH*T — seems wrong.

State supreme court sides with farmer over pig manure plan [ABA Journal]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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