Mount Vernon News

MOUNT VERNON — In a meeting with the board of commissioners Monday, Jim and Martha McDonald said they are doing their best to work with and cooperate with all of the parties concerned with the construction of a chicken-raising facility north of Mount Vernon near Ohio 3 in Monroe Township.

One point emphasized by Jim McDonald is that his farm is organic, and that a large reason for the decision to raise the chickens is for the manure to be used as fertilizer. McDonald said the manure from the proposed facility would either be directly spread onto the fields, if the conditions were right, or stored in a dry area to prevent the spread of flies.

“This is not a megafarm,” said McDonald. “It is small to moderate.”

Because of the smaller scale of his proposed operation, McDonald said he will not have to apply for permits from the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

The 75,000 broilers — which would be in two buildings on the McDonald farm — would be brought in, raised and then taken away from the farm; the process would be repeated every eight weeks. The facilities will be cleaned and sanitized before a new batch of young chicks is brought in. McDonald also said that the birds would not be caged.

The birds themselves would be delivered and picked up by Case Farms; the facilities and management of the facilities will be in the hands of McDonald and his family. Case Farms will also deliver the feed for the broilers.

Rob Clendening of the Knox Soil & Water Conservation District attended the meeting as well. According to Clendening, Case Farms estimates manure output for a year would be approximately 900 tons, which is less than a 50-cow dairy farm would produce.

Charlie Bratton of Danville plans to open a chicken breeding facility on Ohio 205, and said that he and McDonald “don’t want to do anything, obviously, to make our neighbors mad or [to] pollute the water or pollute the air or anything else.” Bratton also said he had talked to representatives from Case Farms, and was told Case prefers contracting with smaller farmers because of better efficiency and the reduced risk of crises, such as disease.

“It all comes down to management,” said McDonald.

McDonald said he is getting opposition to his plan from his neighbors, Scott and Lauren McKenzie, who are opposed to the facility because of the potential problems of odors and manure runoff.

“On March 27 we invited the McKenzies over ... to try to come to some type of an agreement,” said McDonald. “We offered to build a fence ... [to] plant trees, shrubberies [but] they were very disagreeable to this.”

He said he wants to try to resolve all problems in a “neighborly fashion.”

Clendening said he sees his office as being in the position of a moderator in the dispute.

“The role of our office is not ... to take sides on the issue,” he said, but to make sure things are managed well. He also said that when emotions run high, differences are more difficult to work through.

“Unfortunately, one of the realities that we’ve got here in Knox County is that we’re 15 miles away from some of the unfortunate circumstances they’ve had at Croton,” he said. “A lot of people are aware of the problems that they’ve had in that area.”

The public, said Clendening, has images of the problems that occurred in Croton with the Buckeye Egg Farm, and acknowledged that it may be difficult to move past that.

An informational session concerning concentrated animal feeding operations will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Great Room at the Mount Vernon Developmental Center.