Group fights influx of chicken farms
COLCORD — A pleasant breeze from the south made the covered front porch at the home of Jerry Linn and his partner, Tena Doan, a nice place to hang out Monday morning.
“It’s our favorite place to be,” Doan said.
“As long as the wind is right,” she added with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.
When the chicken farm across the road from their Colcord home increased its operation 18 months ago from four houses with 40,000 to 60,000 birds per house to 10 houses, it came as a shock.
They now live about 1,200 feet away from about 500,000 chickens.
When the build began, they asked for help from local, state and federal agencies. They still have copies of all the letters and their research and correspondence. They even tried to start a local petition to get the county to do something about it. Nothing worked. Linn, 74, was born just about a mile from this spot, “when this all was nothing but woods.” Now he’s worried about its future.
“The air and the water, those are my concerns,” he said.
The smell downwind is like rank road-kill with a hint of ammonia. “When the air is heavy, it’s like you can taste it,” he said.
“I’m still trying to find an answer from someone if that air pollution is safe,” he said.
“It’s too late for us,” Doan said. “But we thought maybe we can get the word out and something can be done to help other people.”
Now that they are being vocal, they’re finding they are not alone.
Group organizes
A new group called Spring Creek Guardians started a Facebook page and is gaining new members daily. After a recent Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry annual report revealed a 70 percent increase in poultry litter fertilizer applications from 2016-2017, and with citizens sharing worries about expansions of local poultry farms, the veteran group Save The Illinois River raised alarms anew as well.
The Guardians grew out of a recent successful campaign to stop the building of chicken houses near Oaks on a parcel adjacent to the Oaks Indian Mission. Now they are focusing on the broader issue.
Concerns center on the impact chicken farm operation have on air quality in close proximity to homes, water quality in areas that are headwaters to precious clear water streams, groundwater for their wells, property values and about wear and tear on county roads used by large poultry trucks.
“That (Oaks Mission) was our wake-up call, but we really should have noticed it sooner,” said Mike Appel of Three Springs Farm. “The problem is as a community you are told no information. They don’t come to you and say, ‘Here’s the plan, here’s how many chickens, here’s what we’re going to do with the litter.’ There’s nothing. You’re in the dark, and suddenly they’re clearing land.”
Company reaction
Simmons Foods spokesman Donny Epp replied via email to say the company requires all its growers to operate in full compliance with all applicable state, federal and local laws.
“Today, Simmons’ partners operate approximately 1,500 chicken houses in three states. About 40 percent are located in northeast Oklahoma, 40 percent in northwest Arkansas and roughly 20 percent are located in southwest Missouri,” he said.
Simmons Foods is building a new plant 2.2 miles north of an existing plant in Decatur. It is set to open in 2019 with full operation by 2022 and is boasting creation of 1,500 new jobs.
When the new facility reaches full capacity in 2022, the company projects a 16 percent increase in the number of chickens processed and an increase of slightly more than 200 chicken houses, about half of which would be added to existing farms in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, Epp said.
Former Delaware County commissioner Danny Duncan has a house in the same neighborhood as Linn and Doan, just about 870 feet from the nearest chicken house.
“My oldest son and his wife and my 6-yearold granddaughter live there,” he said. “That southwest wind brings all that exhaust straight to them. My granddaughter has allergies, and it really affects her big time.”
Duncan said he is running for the commission again and that the county should create some zoning rules to control chicken farm expansion near towns.
“That operation is within a mile of a school and a quarter mile of the cemetery,” he said. “To have people grieving at a funeral and they’re having to put up with them burning (chicken carcasses) that day? That was just disgusting.”
Linn and Doan say they appreciate that farms come with smells and that a person has a right to make a living. They don’t blame the chicken farmers and say they can’t really lay blame on the poultry industry — with the exception of the wear and tear on the rural roads from the poultry trucks with no tax contributions.
“I understand making a living and building the economy, but one man shouldn’t be able to move in and make life miserable for everybody around them,” Linn said.
License requests
The perceived resurgence of chicken house numbers in Delaware, Cherokee, Adair and Mayes counties comes with the construction of an upgraded poultry processing facility just across the state line in Arkansas.
The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry tracks the number of licensed chicken farms. New operations of more than one acre must obtain a license and have a plan in place to address stormwater runoff during construction, as well as a plan for litter storage.
Expansions require a modification to the license but do not generate a new license, according to Jeremy Seiger, director of Agriculture and Environmental Services Division.
“I track how many licenses we have issued, and that has been pretty static and actually decreased somewhat since I started in March of 2014,” Seiger said. “It was around 630 (statewide) when I started and down to about 588 or 589 two years ago. Now it has recovered back to a little over 600.”
While records show 41 new licenses have been requested for Delaware County the past 12 months, much of that may be offset by operations that have closed down, Seiger said. A listing of licenses dating back to January 2016 did not list the number of houses per license.
Save the Illinois River spokesman Ed Brocksmith said the poultry house issue is nothing new but nothing has been done over decades of complaints.
“Over the years many people have contacted STIR and asked what they can do, and there isn’t much we can do,” he said. “There are no provisions, no notification system and I have only known legislators over the years who refused to do anything.”