Township Still Hopes To Tap
Farm’s Water
(Continued from Pago A 1)
plan to continue working at the
test well it had drilled and then
abandoned this spring on his
dairy farm, home to the high
quality 65-cow herd known as
Cocalico Holsteins.
Zimmerman owns about 50
acres of cropland, plus pasture
and land on which the buildings
are situated. His son, Paul Jr.,
manages the cow herd.
Drillers had arrived on the
farm May 27 and pulled out in
early June.
Zimmerman said testing re
vealed a groundwater flow of 12
gallons per minute, much less
than the 100-gallon range pre
ferred for municipal use.
At the time, Eugene Heft,
chairman of the East Cocalico
Water and Sewer Authority, said
the flow from the limestone aqui
fer was somewhat greater, but
not enough to justify the expense
of continuing.
But the township’s geologist
and engineers have recommend
ed more testing in order to get a
better assessment of the potential
water supply, according to Heft.
In early September, they plan
to use an “airlift procedure” as
part of the ongoing study, Heft
said.
Heft said he is not familiar
with how the airlift procedure
works, but that it is meant to help
avoid assessment problems
caused by “cave-ins” that oc
curred during the drilling.
The method is not designed to
secure more water, but only allow
more accurate readings of the
water flow, according to Heft.
The geologist and engineers be
lieve all three wells have have
greater flow potential than prior
tests showed, he said.
The drilling on Zimmerman’s
property was controversial from
the start, in large part because
the farm is included in 500 acres
of prime farmland in the town
ship for which landowners had
applied for ag security protection
in September 2000.
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Bureau, the ag security area is
valid under the law because
township officials failed to act on
the application within the al
lotted time of 180 days after the
landowners filed it.
The drilling site is located in
an alfalfa field near the center of
Zimmerman’s farm. If the town
ship decides to use the well as a
municipal water source, 10-12
acres surrounding the wellhead
would be banned from normal
farming practices.
“It would just demolish the
value of the farm,” Zimmerman
said.
Neighbors and numerous other
people raised their voices against
the drilling operation. Zimmer
man suspects township officials
temporarily pulled out to appease
critics.
“They wanted to quiet people
up,” he said.
After the drilling rig left the
property, Zimmerman said he
sent the township a bill for dam
ages and lost alfalfa production
on about two acres. As of this
week, he hadn’t received any
compensation, he said.
“The whole upper end of the
held is full of ruts you can hardly
drive over with a baler and
wagon full of bales,” he said.
Beside the test well on Zim
merman’s farm, the airlift meth
od will also be performed on test
wells on two other properties in
the township not located in an ag
security area.
According to Heft, the three
wells were drilled in hopes of se
curing a “safe yield” of water for
existing township interests as
well as future development.
The sites were determined
through the use of sophisticated
technology, including geographic
information system mapping
(GIS).
Heft said the Zimmerman case
is the first instance of eminent
domain he’s aware of in East Co
calico Township.
“We’re allowed to do research
drilling through eminent do
main,” he said this spring. “If
there’s water there, we need to
negotiate with the landowners.”
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Groups Partner To Finalize
National Animal ID Plan
WASHINGTON, D.C. A
national animal identification
plan is being developed to help
protect American animal agricul
ture.
State animal health officials,
livestock industry groups and the
federal government are working
together to finalize the plan.
They hope to have Phase One of
the plan, Premises ID, in place by
July 2004.
This phase would require that
standardized premises identifica
tion numbers be established for
all production operations, mar
kets, assembly points, exhibitions
and processing plants.
Once tiie Premises ID systems
are in place, the plan will proceed
to Phase Two, which calls for in
dividual identification for cattle
in commerce. Phase two would
require all other food animal and
livestock species that enter com
merce to be identified through in
dividual or group/lot identifica
tion.
Phase Two would be in place
by the beginning of 2006. The
goal is to develop a national stan
dardized program that has the
capability to identify all premises
and animals that had direct con
tact with a foreign animal disease
within 48 hours of its discovery.
This goal may require that cer
tain data be housed in a central
database.
States, industry and the USDA
have been working in partnership
on the plan through the National
Animal Identification Develop
ment Team. The team, which in
cludes a steering committee and
five working groups, has pro
duced a draft plan with the
working name of the U.S. Animal
17 Soybean Producers Appointed To Board
WASHINGTON, D. C. Secre- Indiana; Curtis A. Raasch, Iowa; ginia.
tary of Agriculture Ann M. Vene- Benny F. Cooper, Kentucky; Ike P. The 62 member Board is author
man has announced 17 appoint- Boudreaux, Louisiana; Douglas A. ized by the Soybean Promotion,
ments to the United Soybean Proehi, Minnesota; Terry L. Ecker, Research, and Consumer Informa-
Board. All appointees will serve 3 Missouri; Norman L. Husa, Ne- tion Act. USDA selected the ap
year terms beginning December braska; Richard J. Stem, Jr., New pointees from soybean producers
2003. Jersey; Floyd L. Peed, North Caro- nominated by the Qualified State
Appointed members represent- lina; Vanessa A. Rummer, North Soybean Board. The mandatory
ing soybean producers by state are: Dakota; Thomas F. Brown, Ohio; program is funded at the rate of
David L. Feilke, Arkansas; Billy Michael H. Gerhart, Pennsylvania; one-half of one percent of the net
W. Sellers, Georgia; Kenneth L. George L. Christensen, South Da- market price of the soybeans pur-
Dalenberg, Illinois; Karen L. Fear, kota; and R. Bruce Johnson, Vir- chased.
Identification Plan (USAIP). It
carries the tagline Protecting
American Animal Agriculture.
The development of a national
identification plan has been
worked on for several years, but
the recent BSE experience in
Canada has reinforced the need
for the U.S. to introduce a na
tional plan as soon as practicably
possible, said Neil Hammer
schmidt, Chief Operating Officer
of the Wisconsin Livestock Iden
tification Consortium and co
chair of the development teams
steering committee.
A national plan which IDs all
food animals and livestock will
allow the U.S. to identify any ani
mals exposed to disease and will
facilitate stopping the spread of
that disease, said Glenn Slack,
president and CEO of the Na
tional Institute for Animal Agri
culture (NIAA). This will help
protect American animal agricul
ture from the devastating effects
that might occur in the event of a
case of BSE, foot and mouth dis
ease or other deleterious diseases
ever being discovered in the U.S.
The draft plan draws on exist
ing voluntary and compulsory
animal identification programs
currently in place in the U.S. and
coordinates these into a truly na
tional program for the first time.
Details are still to be finalized,
but the development team ex-
pects to complete its work within
the next 60 days. It is expected
that the plan will then be open to
review and comment by industry
stakeholders.
Without identification, our
livestock industries would be vul
nerable to any disease situation
that required rapid tracking of
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 16, 2003-A39
animal movement, said Hammer
schmidt.
The draft plan follows 18
months of intensive work by
states, industry and USDA. In
early 2002, NIAAs Animal Iden
tification and Information Sys
tem Committee organized an
NIAA task force comprised of
approximately 100 representa
tives of more than 30 stakeholder
groups.
After months of work, the task
force produced the National
Identification Work Plan
(NIWP). That plan was pres
ented at the NIAA ID/INFO
EXPO in Chicago in July 2002.
The final draft of the NIWP was
then presented to the U.S. Ani
mal Health Association
(US AH A) at its annual meeting
in October 2002.
The US AH A accepted the plan
with a resolution calling for
USDA, APHIS, VS, to establish a
National Animal Identification
Team composed of state, indus-
try and federal partners to fur
ther develop a national plan,
using the NIWP as a guide.”
With this charge, APHIS, VS
identified key industry leaders to
serve as the teams Steering Com
mittee. These steering committee
members then selected members
of five working groups, including
Communication, Transition,
Standards, Governance and In-
formation Technology.
An official Website (www.U
-SAlP.info) containing details of
the draft plan, background in
formation, Frequently Asked
Questions and Answers about the
proposed plan and provision for
comments about the plan is cur
rently under construction.
1