Because they have lots of money. But are we benefitting?
They continue to pollute our water (and our air daily);
Smithfield Foods’ Sioux Falls plant is facing more than $45,000 in fines after state officials discovered the facility discharged wastewater into the Big Sioux River.
The South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has fined Smithfield Foods $46,260 for surface water discharge permit violations.
According to the DENR, between February 1, 2019, and July 31, 2019, Smithfield reported violations of its permit limits for total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand, ammonia, fecal coliform, and toxicity test.
Recently Smithfield expanded their hog kill operation. The city gladly and quietly gave them the building permits.
Before I get to deep into this, I don’t want Smithfield to completely go away, but I would like them to do two important things, 1) Move out of Sioux Falls in a rural area 2) Stop polluting our river and air.
As most people know, or do not know, Smithfield is owned by Chinese investors. They avoid tariffs because, well, they are here. They also avoid millions in corporate taxes because they are in South Dakota. As taxpayers we get ZERO benefits from a foreign company being here. It’s kind of like pipelines going through our state.
One of the main arguments of keeping ‘Stinkyfield’ around is that they provide jobs, which helps are economy. Okay, that’s true, to an extent.
But after the union was pretty much busted up at Smithfield, most of the people that work there are not from here, and if the place closed, they would leave. That isn’t an anti-immigrant statement, that’s just how it works. But it would also present us with an opportunity to retrain those workers into the tech or manufacturing industry. While the Governor and Mayor have been out promoting this industry, they also have the power to shut down Smithfield due to their environmental issues, and continually do nothing.
The people profiting from this venture are NOT your neighbors, they are communists. With all our anti-socialism rhetoric here, you would think we would be appalled.
I have an important question to ask of Noem and TenHaken. How do you make Sioux Falls, South Dakota appealing to tech companies when this place smells like hog sh*t? As my stepfather used to say, “That’s the smell of money.”