Bucks County bought the farm. But what's a farm? Battle continues with Buckingham tract
Bucks County, Buckingham Township, and one of the area's oldest farms remain locked in a taxpayer-funded court battle on the proper use of a preserved farm.
Froehlich's Farm & Garden, on York Road in Buckingham, was one of the first tracts preserved under a multi-million dollar program to save agricultural properties across Pennsylvania. In court documents, Bucks County now alleges the farm was composting wood, telephone poles, and other materials, and creating a “horrific odor” that once resulted in the evacuation of a school, in violation of the preservation deal.
Now, that farm is firing back, and refusing to back down. A county judge has ordered the government to respond by Aug. 31 with any new arguments and evidence in the case.
In an 111-page report with 12 attached exhibits, Froehlich's Farm and Garden alleges government officials are making baseless claims about the business and have no evidence that the farm was responsible for any odor. Without its mulching business, Froehlich's argues it would be one of the “long list of local farm casualties” in Bucks County that taxpayers had once paid millions of dollars to preserve.
In March, a county judge issued a temporary injunction and told the farm to stop making mulch. In July, Buckingham’s zoning officer ― accompanied by a township police officer ― said they went to the farm and spotted the farm's owners, again, processing more mulch.
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Preserved farms in Pennsylvania
In 1999, Froehlich's Farm received $1.2 million collectively from the county, township, and state for the preservation of 106 acres of land, records show.
Under the agreement, the owners agreed to limit their work to certain activities such as growing corn, fruit, and vegetables. Yet the agreement does not specifically exclude the production of mulch. The list of permitted work includes "timber, wood and other wood products derived from trees."
The township code prohibits the following its A1 — General Farming zone: "This use does not include the making of compost and/or mulch using materials from off site but does include the making of compost or mulch from materials that are the on-site byproduct of the General Farming use."
In their initial legal complaint, officials from Bucks County and Buckingham alleged that the mulching operations led to fumes and smells that forced the evacuation of the Bridge Valley Elementary School with firefighters dispatched to the scene.
In their response, the farm's owners stated that “this allegation is just not true,” citing fire department records and weather reports of wind conditions that day. According to the farm's attorneys, firefighters' reports from the incident never specifically blamed the farm.
In the original complaint about the farm, Bucks County and Buckingham alleged that Froehlich's was improperly bringing outside materials onto the farm for composting. The farm's attorneys argue that such activity is typical.
“A simple analogy would be that of pumpkins," states the report. "In order to run a farm to first grow pumpkins, it must first acquire pumpkin seeds offsite.”
All of this comes after hundreds of millions of county, local, and state tax dollars were used to preserve farms here and statewide.
Since 1989, Bucks County said the government has preserved 238 farms at a cost of $178 million. (That's an area nearly half the size of Washington, D.C.) Last year alone, Bucks County estimates $1.3 million was spent to preserve agricultural lands from developers.
Go deeper: Preserved Buckingham farm ordered to stop running 'solid waste facility.' Here's why
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County, Buckingham legal battle continues with Froehlich's Farm
