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Area Senators Split on Statewide Farm Regulations: Bill Would Void Some County Rules

Posted on: Friday, 17 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Zane Wilson, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Mar. 17--COLUMBIA -- A "right to farm" bill received approval by a Senate committee Thursday after a contentious discussion and a vote that split the Horry County delegation.

The measure forbids cities and counties from enacting any regulations on farming that are stricter than those imposed by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Once called by some the "hog bill," the measure failed in the past but now covers everything except hog farms. All other farming, from poultry to tobacco to strawberries, is included.

Two of the three area senators who are on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee were among the five who voted against the bill.

Sen. Yancey McGill, D-Kingstree, said he was torn. It is the first time in his 18 years in the Senate that he voted against legislation favored by the Farm Bureau, he said.

"It's a home rule issue to me," McGill said. "Not all local governments are impeding farming; our local governments are not doing it."

McGill represents a farming area, including some of the rural parts of Horry County, and chairs the Finance Committee's Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee.

"I am probably one of the top agricultural supporters in South Carolina," he said.

The driving force behind the bill is some counties' passage of ordinances that require hog farms and poultry farms to have wider setbacks from other buildings than DHEC requires.

Those laws started popping up in the late 1990s as hog farms sought to move into the state following some hog farm waste spills nearby in North Carolina.

The public reaction brought about new hog farm regulations in South Carolina, and no new large hog farms have opened in the state since then.

Some locations then turned to attempting to keep out the growing number of poultry farms, saying the facilities produce odor and have other detrimental impacts on the quality of life.

If counties want to restrict farming, they should do it with zoning, said Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg. The bill encourages counties to adopt zoning.

Although Horry and Georgetown counties have zoning over much of their territory, some counties have no zoning, including some that have passed ordinances creating larger buffer areas around animal farms than DHEC requires.

"This would undo the setback requirements of any county that has passed setback requirements that are different than DHEC," Hutto said.

"Then what good is zoning?" asked Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman, who is from the same county as Hutto and disagrees with the bill.

"So DHEC would be doing the land use planning for the state," said Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter.

Hutto said that is not true, but that the state should have the same standards statewide for farming rules, not different ones for each county.

Sen. Ray Cleary, R-Murrells Inlet, also was one of the five who voted against the bill. He said he did not like the interference with local government. Sen. Dick Elliott, D-North Myrtle Beach, was in the majority who agreed to send the bill to the full Senate.

McGill said supporters are wrong to say standards should be the same statewide. Farming areas are different and communities may have different needs, he said.

"You're not going to find tobacco planted in Greenville," he said.

Contact ZANE WILSON at 357-9188 or zwilson@thesunnews.com [mailto:zwilson@thesunnews.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)

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