Mountain Grove, MO (EWA) – A much publicized proposal to locate a horse slaughter plant in Mountain Grove, Missouri was soundly rejected by the Mountain Grove town council tonight. The meeting was attended by a capacity crowd of about 300, with many people being turned away and others sitting in areas where they could not see or hear.

The plan, proposed by Sue Wallis of Unified Equine, was to use land just east of the town of Mountain Grove to build a facility to slaughter horses. Wallis had claimed that she chose the location because people in the area were “100% behind what we are doing and 100% behind how we are going to do it.”

The first cracks in her plan happened just days earlier when Dr. Temple Grandin, who Wallis said was to design the plant, publicly stated that she knew nothing about it.

According to Wallis, Chevideco NV, a Belgium corporation with slaughter houses in several countries, was to be her backer and partner. Chevideco was the company that owned the Dallas Crown slaughter house in Kaufman Texas. In 2007, Dallas Crown was closed under an old state law.

Cynthia MacPherson of MacPherson Law Center in Mountain Grove made a blistering and lethal case against the plant. Unfortunately for Wallis, the decades-long record of their many sewer and environmental violations was brought out at the meeting along with many other disturbing facts. In just 19 months of operation the plant had 481 sewer violations. At one point the town of Kaufman had ordered Dallas Crown closed, but the plant had managed to delay the order through a protracted legal battle.

At the end of her presentation, MacPherson showed a power point presentation detailing the devastation of communities caused by Dallas Crown and two other horse slaughter facilities.

In a document supplied to the town, Wallis had addressed some of the issues she knew would surface. On crime, she said it was not likely that crime would increase as a result of the slaughter plant, but MacPherson showed that the closure of Dallas Crown resulted in a huge reduction of crime, discrediting Wallis’ prediction.

• Murders dropped from an average of .5/100,000 a year to 0.

• Rapes dropped from an average of 6/100,000 a year to 0.

• Robberies dropped 65%

• Assaults dropped 61.2%

• Thefts dropped 71.2%

• Auto thefts dropped 83.3%

Wallis held a place on the agenda which she delegated to Roger Lindsey of IDC (Intercity Development Council), the owner of the land in question. The IDC is consortium of which Mountain Grove owns a one-sixth share.

The community opposition was nearly unanimous and when Roger Lindsey rose to speak in favor of the plant he was booed and heckled. The Mayor gaveled the crowd down three times and threatened to clear the room if order was not restored.

The plant is the third announced publicly by Sue Wallis. In recent years she had announced that she was going to use the Cheyenne Stockyards as a mustering point for horses, and when that did not materialize she announced a plan to build a mobile slaughtering facility that would travel around Wyoming slaughtering horses. Reports indicate she is going to try other towns in Missouri.

In a quote to Equine Welfare Alliance, Cynthia MacPherson said, “If they move their plans to another town, we will be right behind them!”

The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 220 member organizations and hundreds of individual members worldwide in 18 countries. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. www.equinewelfarealliance.org

Contacts:

John Holland
540-268-5693
john@equinewelfarealliance.org

Vicki Tobin
630.961.9292
vicki@equinewelfarealliance.org