Terra Nova Dairy vs Wabash County BZA

Indiana CAFO News Update

How many have been following the CAFO news in Indiana of late? If you have, you might already be aware of the Indiana State Court of Appeals decision with respect to "Terra Nova Dairy, LLC vs Wabash County Board of Zoning Appeals" which upheld the trial court's decision.

You can find the details listed at: Indiana Appellate Opinions - Appeals

Or, if you would like a direct link to the pdf version of the ruling, go through this link.

Indiana State Court of Appeals Decision

To loosely sum things up, the Wabash County BZA denied Terra Nova Dairy (TND) their Improvement Location Permit (ILP) Application to build their CAFO. When TND was declined by the BZA, they took it to trial court. They lost.

TND then appealed the trial court decision and from what I understand, they based a large part of their argument on the point that the initial BZA ruling was based on an unlawful CAFO moratorium.

But the Wabash County BZA argued their decision to decline TND's ILP Application for the construction of a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in Wabash County was based on incomplete filing -- and the Indiana State Court of Appeals ruled yesterday in favor of the Wabash County Board of Zoning and the Wabash Court.

In my humble opinion, this really is a simple case of "No means NO."

But who knows if it will end here. Terra Nova Dairy still has the option to take this one more step -- to the Supreme Court -- if they desire.

And the word for the day is: estoppel

ESTOPPEL: A bar preventing one from making an allegation or a denial that contradicts what one has previously stated as the truth. [Obsolete French estouppail, from Old French estouper, to stop up, from Vulgar Latin *stuppre; see stop.] (def. from thefreedictionary.com)