The City of Aumsville has added its voice to those opposing large-scale chicken ranches in the region as state lawmakers take up the matter for possible legislation next year.
During the June 13 meeting of the Aumsville City Council, officials reached a consensus to send a letter to Gov. Kate Brown expressing concern for the potential environmental, social and economic impacts of commercial chicken farms.
Three known chicken ranches are under development near Stayton, Scio and Jordan, and Aumsville said these farms could pollute ground and surface water, deplete too much water from the aquifer, and drive down tourism for events such as the Aumsville Corn Festival.
“Aumsville City Council hopes that you will direct your agencies to take whatever actions are available to them to prevent these facilities from going forward,” the letter told Brown, “and to review Oregon laws and policies that permit these kinds of operations in the Willamette Valley.”
City Administrator Ron Harding conceded there may not be grounds to block the three farms if they comply with current regulations, but Aumsville officials wanted to question whether or not regulations should be tightened to mitigate the impacts of commercial chicken farms.
“Really the idea is not intended to stop the projects, because I’m not sure this is possible,” said Harding. “I think the idea is to inform the governor and legislators that there may be loopholes in the regulations.”
Lawmakers examining options
The city’s concerns mirror those brought before legislators June 2 during a meeting of the Senate Interim Committee On Natural Resources and Wildfire Recovery. The committee chose to form a workgroup to investigate the matter for a possible bill during the 2023 legislative session, with an emphasis on gathering input from both sides of the issue.
Critics of commercial chicken ranches, as well as industry advocates, told lawmakers June 2 such operations have a significant impact on the Pacific Northwest, but for starkly different reasons.
Local resident Kendra Kimbirauskas, with Farmers Against Foster Farms (FAFF), argued industrial-scale chicken farms create dangerous levels of ammonia in the air and water, and that regulations are currently too lax to manage these potential threats effectively. She urged lawmakers to take action and create a process that considers not only the function of an industrial chicken farm, but its scale and the impact multiple large farms would have on an area.
“We just feel we’ve been doing so much to bring people to our communities, we feel that this kind of industry is not conducive for our rural communities’ resiliency,” said Kimbirauskas.
However, Eric Simon, owner of J-S Ranch, near Scio, said commercial poultry farms are an important part of the local food supply and help grocers keep up with consumer demand for fresh, local poultry. He said, though farms like J-S Ranch can grow millions of birds annually, growers still want to create conditions ideal for each animal.
“A happy, healthy bird makes a grower money,” said Simon, whose facility is expected to handle 3.5 million chickens each year. “Uncomfortable, sick or dead birds don’t.”
J-S Ranch receives permit approval
This meeting came one week after the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality granted Simon a permit May 26 allowing operation of a large livestock facility. Simon applied for the permit in 2020 shortly after purchasing the ranch along Jordan-Scio Road and was required to document how he would safely manage chicken manure and other animal waste, wastewater, and noxious smells.
Regulators sought public comment for the application between August and October, 2021, including a virtual town hall Oct. 21, 2021, attended by 114 individuals. By that time FAFF had organized a deluge of opposition and the vast majority of comments received by regulators were against Simon’s application.
FAFF has since appealed the May 26 decision, and on June 10 sent an email to supporters declaring their intent to oppose all permits for J-S Ranch including a construction permit from DEQ, a road access permit from Linn County, and water supply plan from Oregon’s Water Resources Department. Organizers have acknowledged lawmakers do not have grounds to deny these permits if J-S Ranch meets all their requirements, but said this is evidence that the laws need to be changed and they intend to campaign until regulations are revised.
“While we are not happy that these permits have been or are going to be issued, the important thing to know is that our fight is not over and we will continue to challenge the siting of J-S Ranch with every opportunity,” said FAFF.
Simon said he does not believe regulators will change course after so much time and effort has already been spent evaluating his application and he does not believe they will be swayed by FAFF’s arguments.
“It’s just a stall tactic,” he said. “Obviously, the Department of Ag has slow-walked this very carefully for two years now, so this isn’t something we jumped onto and said, ‘We need to issue this permit.’ This has been a very, very careful, long process to get this done, so we don’t expect any changes from this appeal.”
Owner says critics are misled
Simon said he is frustrated FAFF has gained so much traction using arguments he sees as misleading and sensationalist. Having lived for 21 years on a commercial chicken farm in Brownsville, Simon said neither he nor his neighbors have encountered the health concerns described by FAFF, including breathing problems from ammonia and livestock dust.
“People in town don’t even know there’s a [commercial chicken] farm in Brownsville,” he said, adding his daughter was married at the farm and “nobody said anything about it.”
Simon conceded there are days when the smell does become a nuisance, such as when the animals are being loaded for shipment or on particularly hot days, but that such eventualities are simply part of agriculture. He added there are already large chicken ranches throughout the region that operate unnoticed by most residents.
“There are millions of birds raised at any given time all throughout the Willamette Valley,” he said. “Where’s the complaints? Where’s the issues we’re having there?”
Simon said, if he could speak to FAFF supporters, he would ask them to consider the thorough review his waste management plan received and accept that the state and J-S Ranch performed their due diligence.
“We’ve done two years of this process,” he said. “Accept the ruling and move on.”
However Kimbirauskas said FAFF will not be standing down, reiterating their goal to revise the laws so operations like J-S Ranch cannot be established without greater oversight.
“If we thought the agency had performed due diligence, we wouldn’t have the need to challenge the permit,” she said. “But the reality is this location is completely inappropriate for a mega poultry operation and in our opinion the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s CAFO permit is neither protective of our rivers or our groundwater. We will continue to utilize every tool we have to challenge the siting of mega poultry operations
on our prime farmland and next to
our rivers.”
Simon said his concern is that FAFF doesn’t want to see large-scale chicken farms established at all, and he is being targeted because of bigger frustrations with commercial agriculture.
“Right from the get go, they told me that their goal was to bankrupt me,” said Simon. “…It’s just terrible what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to make an example of me so future expansion won’t happen.”
