A much publicized proposal to locate a horse slaughter plant in Mountain Grove, Missouri, was soundly rejected by the Mountain Grove town council on Tuesday night, March 6. The meeting was attended by an over- capacity crowd.
No horse slaughter in Mountain Grove, MO
A proposal to locate a horse slaughter plant in Mountain Grove, Missouri, has been soundly rejected by the Mountain Grove town council.
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.
According to Wallis, she will take her plans to other communities in Missouri.
Cynthia MacPherson and horse advocates have served notice that they will follow her wherever she goes.