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MCDONOUGH COUNTY, ILL. -- A proposed hog confinement operation in Southeastern McDonough County is facing serious setbacks.

The owner of Shamrock Acres failed meet a permitting deadline for the Confined Animal Feeding Operations or CAFO, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The application for the confinement expired June 10th, 2012.

The facility would have housed up to 18,000 hogs at a time.

Landowners with the Rural Residents for Responsible Agriculture have campaigned against Shamrock Acres.

"18,000 is a lot of hogs in a very small amount of space. We were very concerned about this site coming in, polluting our environment, decreasing rapidly our land values, and also tearing apart our community, which is what a lot of these places do when they come in," Loka Ashwood, spokesperson for the RRRA said.

Even though it's not likely, Shamrock Acres will build in McDonough County anytime soon, members of the new organization are still concerned about the effects of CAFOs coming into the area.

"It's a known fact that these size of facilities are going to continue to threaten rural Illinois, unless we do something about it. And that something is having more stringent regulations on these facilities," Ashwood said.