It was standing room only at the Snow Hill library on Tuesday evening as Ocean Pines residents gathered to protest a proposed poultry farm.

By Brian Gilliland, Associate Editor

(April 26, 2018) Besides an overwhelmingly negative attitude toward a proposed concentrated feeding operation off Peerless Road in Showell that received preliminary approval from the Maryland Department of Environment in March, residents of Ocean Pines and Bishopville also had complaints about notification and the location of the meeting.

The Assateague Coastal Trust exercised its right to request a hearing with the MDE concerning the farm, which is proposed to grow 130,000 chickens per flock in three houses.

About 50 people gathered at the Snow Hill Library Tuesday evening to voice their concerns, which were universally against the project.

Residents were concerned about potential runoff from the facility into Middle Branch and the Shingle Landing prong. While the facility has been granted a zero-discharge permit, meaning it would not be allowed to dispose of waste products into the air or water besides what it could construe as “stormwater runoff,” the lack of reporting required by the agency along with design elements of the facility that would not hamper the flow of waste products from the farm into the water are points of contention, according to Kathy Phillips, executive director of the Assateague Coastal Trust.

Phillips also deduced that since no residence was included in the plans for the farm, no one would be living there and so emergency response, in the case of a hurricane or strong nor’easter for example, could be slow.

According to the MDE, the farm’s stormwater management must be able to withstand a storm characterized as once per quarter century within 24 hours.

Some attendees were also critical for what they called a lack of notification of the approval or the public hearing by the agency, even though for some of them, the affected waterways are literally in their back yards.

Most attendees that spoke on the topic agreed they had only heard about the meeting three or four days ago, limiting the ability to organize. They also voiced concern the meeting was in the county seat, Snow Hill, instead of closer to the potentially affected area about 40 minutes to the north.

In the end, this was just a public hearing, so no questions were answered though all of the comments were logged for the record and will be incorporated into the file concerning this permit.

Also, as the site was simply granted a preliminary approval, there should be more opportunities to address the issue in the future.