Activists sound health alarms on poultry houses

"It can only go up."

That's what Thomas and Sherri Kerchner told themselves when they picked Somerset County, Maryland's poorest county, as the place where they would spend their golden years. By then, they had already fallen in love with the 10 acres of untamed forest a little ways north of Princess Anne that would become their new home.

"I came down to actually look at another property, but I found this one," Thomas Kerchner recalled. "It was a jungle, but I spent some time sitting in the woods, and I said this felt right."

For the next decade, it continued to feel right. Then a small sign sprouted last year in the field across the street from the couple's log home. And things would never be the same again.

Today, the Kerchners are planning to put their beloved home on the market. They'd like to be closer to their grandchild. But another motivation, they say, is to get away from the factory farms popping up all around the county — and too close for their health.

"I don't want to be 80 years old and not be able to open my windows because of the downsides of these large complexes — ammonia, flies and particulates," said Kerchner, 63.

The couple ended up joining a group of concerned residents and environmental activists that pushed the County Commission to take action. Last December, the board tasked its planning commission with reviewing the county's poultry house regulations and recommending what changes may be necessary.

The debate has shone a spotlight like never before in rural Somerset on how modern, highly concentrated broiler chicken farms may affect the health of their neighbors.

"We had 15 or 20 people in there complaining about it, and I said, 'Well, maybe we should look into it and see if there's anything valid to their complaints,'" said Randy Laird, the County Commission's president.

Poultry-house boom

The new scrutiny has its roots in a controversy that kicked off last summer, when a pair of large chicken-raising operations were proposed near residential developments along Backbone Road northeast of Princess Anne.

They are part of a poultry-house boom spreading across Delmarva. In Somerset alone, 67 poultry houses on 18 different properties are permitted and simply awaiting completion.

"Probably more houses will be built this year than last year, and I would say what was built last year was bigger than what was built the previous two or three years combined," said Bill Satterfield, executive director of the trade group Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc.

The surge can be traced to economics, Satterfield noted. High pork and beef prices have led consumers to increasingly embrace economical chicken. In an effort to meet greater demand, some giant poultry processors have offered incentives for local farmers to boost capacity.

The new complexes aren't like the family farms of yesteryear, critics say. Instead of one or two chickenhouses, landowners pack four, five, six or more onto a property. And the houses themselves tend to be about twice as big, measuring as much as 60 feet by 600 feet.

The main thrust of the opposition to the new Somerset chickenhouses has come from a newly formed community group, the Backbone Corridor Neighbors Association; the Washington, D.C.,-based advocacy group Food & Water Watch; and the Worcester County-based Assateague Coastal Trust.

In letters and public testimony, critics have cited several concerns about the houses, ranging from the consequences for the Chesapeake Bay restoration to environmental justice. But a common, overriding theme has been public health.

A group of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore outlined the health concerns in a 10-page letter back in February. They argued that intensive broiler operations, like those proposed in Somerset, could:

• Pass along diseases to nearby residents through contaminated flies, air and water.

• Cause air pollution that would lead to cases of asthma, bronchitis and allergic reactions.

• Produce manure that could pollute drinking water sources with nitrates, drug residues and "other hazards." The possible health effects would include thyroid problems, neurological impairments and liver damage.

Well water worries

About 15,000 Somerset residents rely on well water, representing about three out of five residents.

"The concern for Somerset County is the degree of concentration and the percentage of residents who are on private wells," said Claire Fitch, the center's food systems policy program officer.

The primary basis for her concern, Fitch said, is a University of Maryland Eastern Shore pilot study in 2010 that showed that two-thirds of well water samples failed drinking water standards for coliform bacteria, which is found in the guts of warm-blooded animals.

The water may also be laced with nitrate, which at high levels can contribute to a host of health maladies, including diabetes and birth defects. A 1997 study of Delmarva well water found that a 1 percent increase in boiler inventory was linked to a 0.4 percent increase in nitrate levels in wells near chickenhouses.

Water isn't the only worry. The letter also notes evidence that shows germs from boiler operations can spread by air up to nearly two miles away.

Maria Payan is a Pennsylvania-based community organizer with the advocacy group Socially Responsible Agricultural Project. Working as a consultant for the Assateague group, she took an air sample outside a Somerset family's home off Palmetto Church Road recently that registered a concentration of 10 parts per million for ammonia.

It can cause eye irritation starting at 20 parts per million, experts say.

Payan is quick to point out that the reading is nowhere near as high as it could have been. Usually, the homeowners said they can smell the odor, but that wasn't the case when the sample was taken. And the house was between the chickenhouse and where Payan was standing, shielding her.

The Johns Hopkins letter cites "a growing body of evidence" that "has implicated industrial broiler production in the spread of infectious diseases (including antibiotic-resistant strains), the generation and spread of airborne contaminants, and the contamination of ground and surface waters." It goes on to list 51 research studies, books and government reports, among other types of source material.

Bunk, Satterfield says.

"If you look at it, a lot of the so-called studies they cite are not terribly applicable to the Somerset County poultry industry," he said.

Unanswered questions

Many of the studies relate to health effects at hog farms, which store animal waste in open-pit lagoons that aren't a component to poultry houses. The researchers cite several studies that note the well-established connection between working in poultry production and certain infections, particularly antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Some of the studies find the presence of germs and irritants well away from chickenhouses.

But none of the studies actually presents evidence of poultry operations making neighbors sick.

That's true, acknowledges Bob Lawrence, director of the John Hopkins center.

"We're very much aware of the fact there's still a lot of unanswered questions," he said, adding that the main obstacle has been that farmers won't let scientists into their chickenhouses to conduct that kind of work.

With the threat of contamination a constant risk — a reality underscored by the ongoing avian flu that has killed about 40 million birds, primarily in the Midwest — it's no wonder farmers aren't laying out the welcome mat to outsiders, Satterfield said.

Mike McIntyre, the Somerset County Health Department's environmental health director, also takes issue with the UMES pilot study that showed a two-third contamination rate in Somerset wells. There were only 45 samples, and they were taken by homeowners — people likely with no training in avoiding cross-contamination, he said.

The department's own tests, conducted when the wells are first put into operation, haven't shown elevated nitrate levels, McIntyre found in reviewing the previous five years of records. Sometimes, high bacteria levels turn up initially but quickly fade after the water lines have been properly flushed, he added.

After analyzing the Johns Hopkins-cited studies and at least 100 more related published articles, the county's top health officer concluded that the evidence "does not support" opponents' claims.

"There's a lot of innuendo, potential for this, possibly cause that, but in terms of hard science, there's very little," Craig Stofko said.

The study about the flies near chickenhouses was typical of the problems with the researchers' assertions, he said.

"There's no way anyone can prove they got an infection from a fly. But if they could do that, there's no way to prove the fly came from a chickenhouse," Stofko said.

Farmers and environmentalists have been closely monitoring the planning commission's debate. Much of the discussion has centered on building setbacks and buffers, which, critics like Payan say, have little to do with protecting public health.

"The suggestion that an extra 25 feet on the side or the rear is going to solve the problem, it's not," she said. "You're not talking about the density of the area. There comes a point where you have to be in balance with the land. And if you tilt to far in one direction, you're threatening everything in Somerset County."

She wants the county to do more. It should halt new poultry house permits while it sets up a stakeholder group to study the problem and make recommendations, she said. The county, in her opinion, also should draft a "health ordinance" to shield people — and the chickens themselves — from disease.

After the planning commission drafts its recommendations, the debate is set to revert back to the County Commission. More public hearings are expected to be held before leaders reach any resolution.

For Kerchner, who describes himself as "semi-retired" and works in a building maintenance and security job, the outcome won't change much.

He doesn't mind agriculture, he insists. He once lived on a chicken farm while renting a house from an older couple in Berlin and often helped with chores. But his opposition to the new breed of chickenhouses stands.

"I know there are people who say it's the NIMBY thing, not in my backyard," Kerchner said. "My problem is not chickenhouses. It's the scale of them."

jcox6@dmg.gannett.com

410-845-4630

On Twitter @Jeremy_Cox

Policy recommendations for poultry houses

A group of academics, supported in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, convened in 2007 to discuss the health impacts of concentrated animal-feeding operations, also known as CAFOs. They urged localities to consider several policy shifts, including:

• Basing decisions on the siting and permitting of CAFOs on the basis of total animal density allowed in a given watershed as determined by the carrying capacity.

• Requiring environmental impact statements for all new CAFOs. These should include environmental health, social justice and socioeconomic issues.

• Issuing permits for CAFOs in public meetings decided at the local level.

• Regulating CAFOs using standards applied to general industry based on the level of emissions and type of waste handling.

• Following the American Public Health Association recommendation for a moratorium on all new CAFO construction.

Source: The research booklet "Environmental Health Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Anticipating Hazards Searching — for Solutions."