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DeCoster Animal Factories:
Decades of Endangering Workers and the Environment
Austin “Jack” DeCoster has owned and operated intensive, industrial-scale animal confinement plants in
the U.S. since the early 1960s. Doing business under various company names, such as Quality Egg of
New England, LLC, DeCoster Farms, and Maine Contract Farming, LLC, DeCoster has become the largest
producer of eggs in New England, and a major player in the Iowa pig farm belt. DeCoster egg operations also
figure prominently in the Midwest, with multiple facilities in Iowa, Ohio, and Maine.
DeCoster Farms entered the ranks of the nation’s most notorious polluters of land and water in the 1990s, after
constructing several huge pig feeding operations in Iowa that stretched surrounding communities’ abilities
to deal with the resulting waste well beyond their limits. DeCoster’s record of environmental devastation
has been matched by a long record of violations against the most basic rights of workers. Over the years,
DeCoster businesses have been the target of investigations and penalty proceedings by a wide range of state
and federal agencies, among them the federal Occupational Safety and Health Commission (OSHA), the
U.S. Immigration and Customs Administration, the Maine Human Rights Commission, the federal Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, and the
Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Examples of DeCoster’s many brushes with the law follow:
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Prior to 1993: Even before he built his first large-scale Iowa pig farming operation, Austin J. “Jack”
DeCoster had already drawn the serious attention of environmental and labor law enforcement authorities. The
Maine Department of Environmental Protection had brought a 14-count action against him for activities that
were polluting both air and water. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administ