In what some see as a blow to the so-called "anti-sprawl" movement, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling overturning an Iowa law that immunized farmer for being sued under public-nuisance laws.

The justices, without comment, refused on Monday to review a decision by Iowa's highest court that struck down the state's "right to farm'' law, similar to laws enacted in every other state.

A large, interstate coalition of farmer groups told the court that the Iowa Supreme Court decision, if allowed to stand, will deprive more than 100,000 Iowa farms of the legal assurance that they won't be sued ``because they look and sound and smell like farms.''

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, states passed those farm-protection laws in response to pressures from "suburban sprawl."

The Iowa law, enacted in 1982, is typical in that it protects farmers against nuisance lawsuits as long as the basis of neighbors' complaints are not tied violations of federal or state laws, negligent operation of the farm, water pollution or excessive soil erosion.

"The challenged statutory scheme amounts to a commandeering of valuable property rights without compensating the owners, and sacrificing those rights for the economic advantage of a few,'' the state court ruled in throwing out the Iowa law. "In short, it appropriates valuable private property interests and awards them to strangers.''

Ralph Grossi, president of the non-profit, anti-growth group American Farmland Trust said the Supreme Court's decision shows the need for even tougher laws to limit growth and protect farmland from being sold.

"We must eliminate subsidies that support sprawling development over our best farmland. Policies should not favor untrammeled consumption of land, nor should they drive development out of America's cities," Grossi said in a written statement. "And we cannot lose sight of the constant threat to farmland posed by sprawling, unplanned growth."

Published: February 24, 1999

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