REMINGTON — Charlene Koebcke said “no” when a man seeking support for his proposed factory hog farms offered her a free 30-pound box of pork.
Then she went straight to the Benton County Surveyor’s Office to learn more about Remington Pork LLC’s plans.
In April, just before the pork offer, she had received a letter in the mail from the county attorney about a proposed hog farm. The plan was for a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) on 82 acres of soybean fields next to her 40-acre property. One of three new CAFOs proposed for Benton County, this one would house 8,582 confined pigs that would be fed there about six months before being taken for slaughter. The three farms together would have 26,000 hogs.
The legally required notice to adjacent property owners said the pork producer was seeking land-use variances “for the purpose of creating a hog farm.” It said the CAFO requests were on the county board of zoning appeals and plan commission’s May 15 meeting agendas.
The 72-year-old widow was surprised. She confirmed the news with the surveyor, and again when Remington Pork LLC owner Quentin Overbeck delivered an assortment of ribs, pork loin, bacon and sausage to Koebcke’s son’s house a mile from one of the proposed CAFOs.
“Quentin shows up with a box of pork the size of that laundry basket there in his hands,” Koebcke said during an interview at her century-old farmhouse. “And he tells me, ‘Charlene, I’ll be bringing you some too.’ And I said, ‘Quentin, don’t bother. You’re not buying us.'”
She and about 50 others opposed to the CAFOs attended the board of zoning appeals’ meeting and the plan commission meeting that followed. She and others expressed worries and asked for a continuance, which was denied. An hour and 20 minutes later, the CAFOs had received unanimous favorable recommendations from both boards.
Koebcke said no one she talked to after receiving the letter knew about the CAFO plans, and the meeting was less than three weeks away. She notified neighbors and word spread quickly among Gilboa Township’s 275 residents. The township trustee didn’t know until an upset neighbor called.
“It feels very clandestine, very hush-hush,” said Marlene Reynolds, who lives within a mile or so of all three sites in the house where she grew up. She cried while speaking during the 15-minute public comment session.
“They only told people they needed to tell and suddenly there was a meeting and — surprise — and it was done before anyone could blink,” she said during a kitchen-table interview in August.
Her daughter, KLynn Reynolds, went to school with Overbeck and his two brothers. The families have been acquainted for 40 years. During the May hearings, Overbeck sat at the table with the members, his back to the audience. After she spoke, Marlene Reynolds leaned toward him. “Quentin, please. Don’t.”
The approvals from those two boards are not the final decision. Benton County’s three commissioners have to vote on the issue yet. And a judicial review request filed in court on behalf of nine affected property owners alleging improper procedures by the BZA and plan commission has delayed further action. A court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 23.
What are CAFOs?
Hog farming is big in Indiana, with more than 2,000 operations of all sizes, including more than 400 CAFOs that confine more than 5,000 hogs at once. Indiana’s hog farms brought in $1.5 billion in revenue in 2023, according to an International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health report. The state is fifth in the nation in hog production, providing 7% of U.S. pork and sending about 10 million hogs to market annually, most raised in CAFOs.
Indiana’s Confined Feeding Operation rules spread around the responsibility of overseeing CAFOs, defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as animal feeding operations that keep livestock in a confined space without grass or vegetation for at least 45 days over 12 months.
The state Department of Environmental Management regulates facility construction, on-site wells, manure handling, stormwater run-off and emergency spills. The agency doesn’t regulate odors but recommends ways to reduce them.
County zoning regulations determine where CAFOs can be built. Local and state highway departments deal with road concerns. The state animal health board oversees dead animal disposal, and the Department of Natural Resources monitors groundwater. The county health department deals with fly and mosquito complaints.
Living with the consequences
Overbeck’s variance request says transitioning the row-crop fields, which measure 82, 198 and 320 acres, would benefit Benton County. “Animal agriculture is a driver of the local economy and aligns with the businesses and resources in the area,” he wrote in his proposal.
Overbeck didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
Jim Lawinger, president of the zoning and planning boards, chastised people who spoke out of turn and claimed the process was unfair during the May 15 meetings.
“If I hear much more comment from the back, I will clear this room in a heartbeat. Is that understood?”
The room went quiet before Tyler Fledderman from Keystone Cooperative, a swine-based business that partners with Midwestern farmers to provide pork to consumers, spoke up. The CAFOs will provide $15,000 a year in property taxes and Keystone will agree, he said, to repair local roads damaged by trucks hauling hogs and feed.
“Our goal is to respond with a regional footprint responsibly by working with farmers like the Overbeck family,” he said, calling them “responsible stewards of the environment.”
Lawinger wrote on his voting ballot that the 320-acre CAFO planned on County Road 800 North had “close neighbors effected.”
Marlene Reynolds and the other neighbors won’t give up the CAFO fight. “We’re not against farming,” she said. “It’s the scale of this operation and the lack of transparency and accountability. He (Overbeck) lives six miles away. He doesn’t have to live with the consequences.”
Koebcke is worried manure runoff from the hog farm planned behind her house will contaminate her well. Will she be able to hang her laundry out to dry? She retired this year and bought two white rocking chairs for the back porch, which looks out on knee-high rows of soybeans.
“I got the rockers a few days before I heard about this,” she said. “It’s gonna be a whole different view now. And they say we won’t be bothered by the smell. I just wish they would consider my health and well-being. And my rights, as a neighbor.”
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FPI News reporter Laura Lane covers the people and issues of rural Indiana. Reach her at 812-760-1540 or laura.lane@fpinews.org.
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