After numerous deferrals, the Wyoming Environmental Quality Council has decided that it will make a decision in setting stricter standards for hog odors.

According to an agenda, the EQC will set hog odor standards on Friday, the day before new council members appointed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal join the council.

"We really don't know what to make of this," said Vickie Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, which has petitioned the EQC since 2000 for stricter standards governing noxious odor emissions from hog farms near Wheatland and Albin. When the EQC voted to defer a hog odor decision on February 13, Goodwin said she was under the strong impression that this group of council members wasn't ready to make a decision.

"Each council member took time to say he or she wasn't ready to decide," Goodwin said.

Thomas Dunn, vice-chairman of the Environmental Quality Council and hearing officer for the hog odor issue, denied that the decision had been indefinitely delayed.

"People just wanted a couple of weeks to get their heads together," he said.

The council members also mentioned that they wanted to address hog odors with cattle odors.

"That's very different," Goodwin said, noting that the EQC has long understood that hog and cattle odors are fundamentally different and require different regulatory solutions.

Goodwin said she is also bothered that after the EQC formally closed the hog odor problem comment period on Jan. 31, council members continued to gather new information about the issue.

Specifically, Goodwin said that EQC member Olin Sims and two other council members had a tour of Premium Hog Farms outside of Wheatland on February 7, where they visited with farm manager Doug DeRouchey and John Bunker, a representative of a cattle feedlot association.

Goodwin also said that Terri Lorenzon, director of EQC, had found a new Irish study about controlling hog odors on the Internet, and passed copies around to the council members.

Both sources of new information - the tour and the study - happened after the comment period was closed, said Goodwin. In both cases, advocates for stricter standards have not had an opportunity to question, challenge or rebut the new information, she said.

DeRouchey attended the hog odor public hearing in January, but did not testify, Goodwin said, when Goodwin's group would have had a chance to hear and comment on what he said.

EQC's Dunn said the council has scrupulously followed a Wyoming Supreme Court ruling that guides rule making and information gathering. He said proponents of stricter hog odor regulations will have an opportunity to comment at today's hearing.

Tom Throop, executive director of the Equality State Policy Center, said the actions of the EQC "don't pass the smell test."

The new information gained by council members, Throop, is "ex parte" and should not be considered by the EQC in reaching a decision about regulating hog odors.

Throop said the EQC should "pull back" the research study found on the Internet and disqualify the three council members who toured the hog farm. He said it wasn't fair that advocates for stricter hog odor regulations didn't have an opportunity to respond to DeRouchey's comments on the hog farm tour, or respond to the Irish study.

The other alternative, Throop said, is to wait until the new members of the EQC come on board and start over with a public hearing that leads to a decision by the newly constituted council.

Jim Angell, executive director for the Wyoming Press Association, said the EQC dodged a violation of the public meetings act by sending only three council members to tour Premium Farms.

"Had they sent four, that would have meant they had a quorum and were meeting illegally," Angell said. He said touring Premium Farms provided the three council members with one-sided information and no chance for the other side to comment.

"They're within the technical boundaries of the public meeting act," Angell said, "but are they within the spirit?" He said there's no way for the public, or advocates for stricter hog odor regulations, to know what was discussed on the hog farm tour.

"This smells like a hog operation," Angell said.

The Environmental Quality Council will vote on hog odor regulations at 11 a.m. today, via the Wyoming Video System, with council members physically present at the University of Wyoming Administrative Building, Rm. 111 in Jackson, or the Western Wyoming Community College, Rm. 1229E, in Rock Springs. The public can view the meeting at the above locations, or at:

- Cheyenne City Center Building, 1920 Thomes, Suite 410.

- Eastern Wyoming Community College in Douglas, 203 N. 6th St.

- University of Wyoming Outreach Office in Gillette, 720 W. 8th, Annex D.

- College of Education, Laramie, Room 117 at 14th & Lewis.

- Eastern Wyoming Community College, Torrington, Tebbet Classroom Building, Room 525, 3200 West "C" St.

Call the EQC office at 307-777-7170 to confirm site availability at the Jackson, Rock Springs or Gillette video sites.