Environmental experts say a proposed poultry project in south Georgia could cause grave damage to the Satilla River. Photo by TimothyJ via Flickr
A proposed south Georgia chicken plant that could be the state’s largest poultry operation is on hold after a Coffee County judge found it would likely harm locals’ health and property values and damage the nearby Satilla River.
The proposal called for 60 chicken houses, each holding more than 25,000 birds, which are projected to produce at least 40,000 pounds of litter roughly every eight weeks – about how long they will be on site – and up to 450,000 carcasses on the site per year.
“According to Defendants, this waste, including dead carcasses, will be periodically hauled off site but will sit in the houses for months before being sold,” wrote Coffee County Superior Court Judge J. Kelly Brooks in his order halting the project while a legal trial continues. “Defendants could not name the hauler or describe the method or frequency of disposal in any manner. Nor could they identify any odor or dust suppression methods to be employed.”
The plaintiffs, a group of landowners near the proposed site, had a variety of reasons for not wanting the operation to start up, mostly having to do with not wanting to be exposed to chicken feces, rotting bird corpses and bacterial runoff.
One local farm owner testified that she and one of her grandchildren are severe asthmatics and she worries about the effects of breathing in particulates from the plant.
Former GOP state Rep. Chuck Sims, representing his company, Sims Funeral Home, testified that he “does not want attendees to be bombarded with pathogen-laden dust and the smell of chicken feces and corpses as they are mourning.”
Other testimony indicated that the project could harm the Satilla River for miles, and potentially all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, and that property owners could see the value of their land drop by up to 30%.
Brooks also criticized defendants for not making any attempts to contact neighbors or engage with the community about the project.
“The evidence clearly showed that Defendants pursued this project quietly and avoided community engagement until forced to respond through these proceedings,” Brooks wrote.
“The court is not without empathy for potential financial injury to Defendants,” he added. “However, such injury is largely self-inflicted.”
George Lott, an attorney with Atlanta-based Evans Bowers representing the plaintiffs, said a grassroots effort helped bring the project to light.
“Our clients had no idea that this was going forward until the project was already several weeks or several months in the works,” he said. “And it’s almost hard to describe all the efforts they’ve made to try to get information. They held town hall meetings, they contacted county commissioners, they contacted other government regulators, entities, to try to figure out what’s being proposed, who was proposing it, what work was going to be done, and then they even tried to contact some of the defendants directly and couldn’t make any progress. And so they really didn’t know the full scope until right before we filed the lawsuit, I think.”
Kasey Sturm, an attorney with the law firm Weissman representing the defendants, said that’s not accurate.
“I don’t think that’s a fair characterization,” she said. “The property is zoned agricultural. It has widely been acknowledged that chicken farming is an acceptable practice in agricultural land. And again, these family farmers obtained the requisite authority both from the state and from the county to construct and operate chicken houses on their respective farms.”
Sturm also rejected the characterization of the project as the largest poultry operation in the state.
“This is five separate farms, each with 12 houses, which is common and consistent with poultry across the state, consistent with what you see in Coffee County,” she said. “Coffee County is number 15 as far as counties in the state of Georgia for poultry production; this is a very common occurrence in Coffee County.”
Brooks’ order puts the project on hold until the court holds a final trial. Lott said it’s still too early to guess how long that could take.
“Every court is different. Sometimes it’s a matter of months. Sometimes it takes years to get to the final trial. So it’s hard to predict the timing of all of this, but in the interim, until the court holds a final hearing, there is an injunction that prevents further construction on site.”
Sturm said the farmers are evaluating their options and are concerned the ruling could discourage poultry businesses from coming to Georgia.
“We’re disappointed with the ruling,” she said. “We believe it’s contrary to the evidence that was presented at the hearing. The ruling has somewhat of a chilling effect on the marketability of title in the state of Georgia, such that farmers now need to look at when they go and sell property, are they going to be hauled into court for the potential future use of that property by somebody they sell it to? That’s a concern.”
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