By all accounts, the latest large building going up at the YFZ Ranch is intended to house a dairy. Aerial photos of the structure and its attached pens indicate the facility will almost certainly house some type of large scale animal feeding operation.
Just how large the operation turns out to be will determine how closely government regulators will monitor the facility. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality guidelines classify any dairy operation with more than 700 head of cattle as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) and requires the operator to obtain a permit and adhere to strict environmental regulations.
However, a dairy with fewer than 700 head falls under the less stringent rules of an Animal Feeding Operation (AFO) which don’t require a state license or permit.
That’s not to say that AFOs don’t have to follow environmental rules. According to Texas Administrative Code 321.47, the operator of an AFO must comply with a certified water management plan as required by the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board.
Media hype...what a lazy cop calls it when he gets caught not doing his job
Thursday, 16 March 2006 00:00
The national media has descended on Custer County, South Dakota and Sheriff Phil Hespen is not a bit happy about it. It seems that the story we broke here last week about Warren Jeffs’ new hideout in the Black Hills has got Hespen’s hackles up and he’s lashing out at the press in general and us in particular.
Never mind the fact that we here at The Success attempted to contact Sheriff Hespen in order to warn him of the coming avalanche, and forget for a minute that it was he who chose not to return our calls...Hespen has done little since the news broke except challenge the facts of the story and question our motives for printing it.
“They are only interested in selling newspapers,” Hespen was quoted as saying the day after we published our story.
It was two years ago this week that Eldoradoans first learned that a fundamentalist Mormon sect from the Arizona/Utah borderland had purchased 1,691 acres near Eldorado and was constructing large dormitory-style buildings on the property. Since that time the cluster of three buildings that ranch officials first claimed were intended as for a hunting retreat, has grown to include dozens of residential and shop-style buildings and a massive white limestone temple.
The hunting retreat cover story quickly fell through as news stories linked the YFZ to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and its embattled leader, Prophet Warren Jeffs.
Stephen Brown, management consultant with the Upper Colorado River Authority told The Success this week that the news that a dairy is being installed at the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado is troubling. He said the UCRA would be monitoring the situation closely and would work closely with the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to ensure that the groundwater beneath the YFZ is protected.
Brown noted that the thin layer of soil that covers most of the YFZ Ranch offers little protection to the groundwater below. “That’s fractured limestone they have out there and I’m very concerned about the potential for contaminating the groundwater,” Brown said.
Former polygamist gets first look at temple on YFZ Ranch
Thursday, 30 March 2006 00:00
Richard Holm of St. George, UT, freely admits that he once practiced polygamy. Having been brought up in Colorado City, AZ as a devout member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, polygamous, or plural, marriages were an accepted fact of life. Now, two years after being kicked out of the church and evicted from his property by FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs, Holm says he has had to reevaluate his faith.
Holm said he lost everything when he was booted out of the church. His two wives, Lorena and Alice, and his seven children were taken from him by Warren Jeffs and reassigned to his brother Edson.
“Warren Jeffs executed my family,” Holm told the Success in 2004. “He took my wives and gave them in marriage to my brother Ed. It was like a death sentence.”
He blames youthful indiscretions for his expulsion from the church. Holm said he strayed as a young man but returned to the church and confessed his sins to Rulon Jeffs.
He says that Warren Jeffs was assisting his father at that point in time and that he secretly audio taped Holm’s confession.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn ruled last Thursday that a Colorado sheriff’s deputy acted appropriately during a traffic stop that resulted in the arrest of Seth Jeffs, brother of fugitive FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, and the seizure of more than $142,000 in cash and other items.
The judge denied motions from Jeffs’ defense attorneys to block prosecutors from using statements and evidence seized during the Oct. 28 stop.
Pueblo The “totality of circumstances” warranted Pueblo County sheriff’s Deputy Eric Medina’s suspicions that something was amiss, Judge Blackburn stated.
Seth Jeffs was charged after the stop with harboring his brother, a federal fugitive, from prosecution.
Judge Blackburn also rejected Jeffs’ request to unseal documents and testimony used to request a warrant to search his vehicle. The judge further declined to return several items seized from Jeffs’ 2005 Ford Excursion. Included among those items are a laptop computer, a black leather bag, a Palm Pilot, calling cards, cell phones and a GPS unit.
By all accounts, the latest large building going up at the YFZ Ranch is intended to house a dairy. Aerial photos of the structure and its attached pens indicate the facility will almost certainly house some type of large scale animal feeding operation.
The national media has descended on Custer County, South Dakota and Sheriff Phil Hespen is not a bit happy about it. It seems that the story we broke here last week about Warren Jeffs’ new hideout in the Black Hills has got Hespen’s hackles up and he’s lashing out at the press in general and us in particular.
It was two years ago this week that Eldoradoans first learned that a fundamentalist Mormon sect from the Arizona/Utah borderland had purchased 1,691 acres near Eldorado and was constructing large dormitory-style buildings on the property. Since that time the cluster of three buildings that ranch officials first claimed were intended as for a hunting retreat, has grown to include dozens of residential and shop-style buildings and a massive white limestone temple.
Richard Holm of St. George, UT, freely admits that he once practiced polygamy. Having been brought up in Colorado City, AZ as a devout member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, polygamous, or plural, marriages were an accepted fact of life. Now, two years after being kicked out of the church and evicted from his property by FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs, Holm says he has had to reevaluate his faith.