Denver voters reject meatpacking plant ban, maintaining open one among nation’s largest lamb slaughterhouses

by Ben Felder, Examine Midwest, Examine Midwest
November 6, 2024

Denver voters rejected a proposed ban on meatpacking crops inside metropolis limits, maintaining open the nation’s largest lamb processing facility. 

Denver Initiated Ordinance 309 was rejected by 64% of voters on Tuesday. The poll initiative, if authorized, would have prohibited the development or operation of slaughterhouses and meatpacking services starting in 2026. 

Superior Farms operates a lamb processing plant in Globeville, a north Denver neighborhood stricken by excessive charges of poverty and air pollution.

“We have now one message for many who tried to (come) to our metropolis and our state to run their experiment to upend the lives of so many hardworking folks: it was a baaaaaaaad thought,” wrote Ian Silver, spokesperson for “Cease the Ban, Defend Jobs,” a marketing campaign group that opposed the ban.

Superior Farms, which produces about 20% of the nation’s lamb meat and processes practically 1,500 head a day, spent greater than $171,000 to oppose the poll query, in line with the Workplace of the Denver Clerk and Recorder. 

In whole, greater than $2.4 million was spent by organizations, companies and people to oppose the poll initiative. 

The Meat Institute, which represents greater than 300 meatpackers and distributors, donated $250,000 to the opposition marketing campaign. Different massive donors included the American Sheep Business Affiliation, the Nationwide Cattlemen’s Beef Affiliation and the Colorado Livestock Affiliation, in line with metropolis marketing campaign finance data.   

Supporters of the ban spent $339,000, led by the animal rights group Phauna Basis, which contributed $110,000.

“I can’t inform you how relieved I’m,” mentioned Gustavo Fernandez, basic supervisor of Superior Farms, in a press release by way of the American Sheep Business Affiliation. “I and the employees at this facility simply wish to do our jobs and supply for our households. Now we are able to get again to that with out this enormous weight on our shoulders.”

Denver neighborhood has been stricken by excessive air pollution for many years

Superior Farms, the lone meatpacking facility within the metropolis of Denver, was the main focus of the marketing campaign, together with the low-income neighborhood the place it’s positioned. 

Its ZIP code — 80216 — has been labeled essentially the most polluted residential space within the nation, in line with a 2017 research from ATTOM Information Options, which reviewed air high quality rankings, Superfund websites, former drug lab websites and different air pollution metrics.  

Meatpacking crops could be heavy polluters. A latest Examine Midwest investigation discovered that crops with the heaviest air and water air pollution are sometimes positioned in low-income communities. 

Proponents of the slaughterhouse ban mentioned it might assist scale back air and water air pollution in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood, the place one-in-five residents stay under the federal poverty line. 

In September, Superior Farms paid a $119,000 penalty to the Environmental Safety Company after violating laws on the way to retailer poisonous chemical compounds.

Jose Huizar, a former Superior Farms worker, mentioned he typically noticed feces dumped into the South Platte River, which is about 40 ft away from the plant. 

“I watched the feces from the holding pens wash into the river, the place kids performed,” Huizar wrote final month in a column for the Denver Put up. “This negligence would by no means be tolerated someplace like Cherry Creek, but it surely’s only one extra method the largely Latino Globeville neighborhood has been left behind.”

The Globeville neighborhood can also be residence to 2 federal Superfund websites, which the EPA designates as among the nation’s most contaminated lands. The EPA has discovered the plant’s ZIP code has excessive ranges of lead and arsenic within the soil. The group can also be nearly fully enclosed by highways and rail strains, which contributes to air air pollution. 

Supporters hope to duplicate ban effort in different communities

Along with lowering air pollution, supporters of the ban mentioned it was a method to enhance animal welfare within the metropolis, calling the Superior Farms facility inhumane. Lower than a month earlier than the election, Direct Motion In every single place, a global community of animal rights teams, launched a video it claimed confirmed animal abuse contained in the Denver plant. 

Direct Motion In every single place mentioned a Colorado chapter took the “undercover” video in June and July and that it reveals lambs being kicked and hit. 

The video was coated by a number of information shops and a few activists displayed the pictures on cellular video boards that had been pushed round Denver earlier than the election. 

Superior Farms denied the video confirmed proof of maximum violence or animal cruelty.

Per week earlier than the election, the Animal Activist Authorized Protection Undertaking wrote a letter to the Denver District Lawyer’s Workplace requesting an investigation into Superior Farms and its remedy of its animals. AALDP mentioned the district legal professional’s workplace has not responded to the request. 

Cassie King, a spokesperson for Direct Motion In every single place, mentioned Ordinance 309 gave voters in Denver a selected method to answer animal cruelty. 

“I believe lots of people wish to put an finish to animal cruelty however simply do not see a path to do this, so they could form of flip a blind (eye),” King mentioned. “However initiative 309 confirmed one potential method for bizarre folks to place an finish to animal cruelty and to get entangled. 

“The animal rights motion, like different actions, is studying from each other,” King added, “and I believe it is already motivating future efforts elsewhere.” 

Closing of plant would have influence lots of of employees

Opponents of 309 mentioned its influence would largely be felt by workers of the Superior Farms plant, most of whom are Hispanic. 

“Many of those employees have been on the facility for many years, and others have generational ties to their firm,” mentioned Chad Franke, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. “The ban (focused) these employees by stripping them of their possession stake and undermining the investments they’ve made of their expert labor and monetary safety.”

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The poll language included a provision that plant employees ought to obtain help from town to seek out new jobs, together with by way of a municipal program designed to maneuver residents into “inexperienced jobs.”  

Opponents of the ban, together with Superior Farms, questioned how efficient town’s job help program would have been and whether or not its workers would be capable of discover comparable pay and advantages.  

The plant employs about 600 folks however greater than 2,700 employees are concerned within the lamb processing sector related to the plant, together with drivers and farmers, in line with a report from Colorado State College. 

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