Cavel owners tried to relocate in Kirkland, IL and in Big Foot, IL. They were defeated by the community. Does anyone know people in any of these areas?
This was in 1999. Hopefully the people of DeKalb didn't want a horse slaughter plant bloodying their town so Cavel tried to relocate. The names on my notes from 99 were Chris Heavlin and Cindy Beuchane. Has anyone contact any IL rescues, HAHS, Donna Ewing' s new organization? They are close to the public. Every group has to work together.


From a 1999 story...posted on EPN site.
The McHenry County Board in Illinois voted “no” this spring to a European company that wanted to convert a 2.4-acre cattle slaughterhouse into an equine slaughterhouse. News of the public debates and pending vote spread quickly, generating phone calls and faxes from all over the United States from people who opposed the slaughterhouse.  A Belgian company, Velda Group, and its subsidiary, Cavel International, petitioned the McHenry County Zoning Board for a “conditional use” permit to reopen the Big Foot Cattle Co. as a horse slaughterhouse and packing plant. The cattle slaughterhouse operated from 1958 until the fall of 1998.  The tiny town of Big Foot, Ill., home to 85 residents, nestles the Wisconsin border on U.S. Highway 14. Rejecting the slaughterhouse meant turning down 40 potential new jobs for the area and a potential investment in the site of $1 million that the Velda Group promised.
Velda operates almost a dozen horse slaughterhouses worldwide. The company sells horsemeat to restaurants in Europe, where horsemeat is considered a delicacy. Human consumption of horsemeat is prevented in this country by both regulations and a culture that disapproves of eating companion animals. Illinois has outlawed human consumption of horsemeat since the 1950s.  According to Jim Hoag, Principal Planner in McHenry County, five public hearings were held on the issue to give people an opportunity to question the petitioners and to voice opinions. The hearings were crowded, and opposition was strong. Testimony summary from the debates listed the reasons that people gave for opposing the slaughterhouse: “Generally, the public spoke against the request because of concerns including the appropriateness of the intended use, lack of economic benefit to McHenry County, theft of local horses, offensive odors, humane treatment of animals, wastewater concerns, property value reduction in the area and traffic concerns.”  Despite the strong outpouring of opposition, Hoag says that that wasn’t the primary reason the Board voted the slaughterhouse down.  “The public outcry might have contributed a little,” Hoag comments. “But the property had been a slaughterhouse for forty years. It was a small site, with truck traffic bringing animals to slaughter and to take the product away. The smallness of the site for storage was really the biggest consideration.”  Vienna Beef LTD and Luc Van Damme were to own the property, but the plant was to be run by Pascal Verde, the general manager of Cavel International. Van Damme’s attorney, Brett Brown, and Verde presented their case for the slaughterhouse at the public hearings. They stated that the site had sufficient parking for employees and incoming trucks. Brown had Hy Ramis take the stand. Ramis was the president and manager of the Big Foot Cattle Company for 10 years. He said that, during his decade of management there, he received very few complaints about odor. He also testified that a wastewater treatment facility was installed at the plant four years ago and that it is monitored by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The seven-member McHenry Zoning Board then voted on the issue, making a unanimous recommendation to the 24-member McHenry County Board to deny the conditional-use permit. The County Board voted it down, too, by a vote of 22 to 1. Its members agreed with the County Zoning Board of Appeals that Velda had failed to meet most of the requirements of conditional use and failed to show how a horse slaughterhouse is in the public interest of McHenry County, which, according to the Chicago Tribune, has the largest horse population in Illinois. Many residents felt that it was no accident, then, that Velda Group and Cavel chose the Big Foot site for a horse slaughterhouse. According to the testimony summary, however, Velda Group officials stated that they chose the site not because it was in the part of the state that had the most horses but because it was a slaughterhouse previously and because of its convenience to O’Hare International Airport.  Only four horse-slaughtering facilities exist in the United States. One of them is in DeKalb, Ill. Cavel’s general manager, Verde, runs the DeKalb plant and had hoped to move the horse-packing operation from the DeKalb site to the Big Foot site. Now that their request was denied, Cavel will continue to operate the DeKalb slaughterhouse.

There are people out there in that area who will fight this and with our help, can win. The media, the Internet, tell everyone.

Cheryl

Cheryl Flanagan
Horse Rescue, Relief and Retirement Fund, Inc.
www.savethehorses.org