Hearing set for Foster Farms slaughterhouse permit after public outcry
State regulators have scheduled a hearing, and given the public more time to comment, on a proposed permit renewal for the Foster Farms chicken slaughterhouse in Creswell, south of Eugene.
The move came after dozens of people emailed the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality protesting the proposal.
The facility has been shuttered since 2006, and company officials said they have no immediate plans to reopen it. But the permit renewal will allow them to do so if they choose.
“While Foster Farms will add local jobs and lower water-rate costs, our citizens have reflected concerns of smell and pollution on their property,” Curtis Thomas, Creswell city planner, wrote to DEQ.
“Further, the city is concerned about a private facility that discharges wastewater in the same tributary of the Coast Fork Willamette as the (city’s) municipal wastewater facility,” Thomas said.
Growing chicken industry
The permit renewal comes at the same time the Willamette Valley’s broiler chicken industry is undergoing a rapid, and controversial, expansion.
Proposed construction of new mega-chicken farms, as well as ongoing expansions of existing facilities, could increase broiler chicken production here by about 13.5 million birds per year, or about 55%.
Most expanded and planned new facilities are owned by contract growers for Foster Farms.
The shuttered Foster Farms slaughterhouse previously was the city of Creswell’s largest municipal water customer.
The proposed permit would allow the facility to discharge treated wastewater to an unnamed tributary of Camas Swale Creek, which eventually leads to the Willamette River.
It would allow first processing (live weight) of up to 100 million pounds of chicken per year. Further processing (finished product) would be limited to 7 million pounds.
Neighbors concerned
Many of the site’s neighbors wrote DEQ expressing concerns if the plant were to reopen.
“I have lived in Oregon since 1972, and I remember the horrendous chicken processing plant odor off Harvey Road in Creswell for many years,” wrote Jen Dygert. “If that Foster Farms rendering plant had still been operational, we would never have considered buying a home in this development, just east of the site.”
Colleen Stewart lives a quarter-mile from the plant.
She told DEQ she is worried about the plant contaminating waterways and wells, endangering fish habitat, causing air pollution and putrid smelling air, negatively impacting existing small farms, reducing property values, exposing nearby schoolchildren to air pollution, and increasing traffic nearby.
Three environmental groups asked DEQ for more time to comment, saying they planned to request public records to get more information about the facility before responding.
They are Willamette Riverkeeper, Center for Food Safety, and the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project.
“There are significant environmental and public health concerns regarding discharges from industrial meat processing facilities,” Kristina Sinclair, an attorney for Center for Food Safety, wrote.
The groups said they will be requesting the permit application records, the old permit, engineering designs and schematics addressing changes made at the facility while it has been shut down, discharge monitoring reports, and management plans and communications.
“Records that the public needs in order to comment on this facility’s proposal are not readily available,” wrote Elisabeth Holmes, senior counsel for SRAP.
In response, DEQ extended the comment deadline, from Aug. 4 to Aug. 31.
Processing and rendering
Foster Farms, based in Livingston, Calif., is the top-selling chicken and turkey brand in the West, with 13 processing facilities in Oregon, Washington, California, Louisiana and Alabama.
Its 35,000-square-foot Creswell facility is located at 33464 E. West Lane. In addition to processing chicken, it also skimmed grease and solids from processing wastewater and rendered it into chicken feed. The new permit allows that as well.
The permit allows the facility to discharge treated wastewater to the creek between November 1 and April 30. During the summer, the wastewater will be used for sprinkler irrigation.
The proposal requires Foster Farms to complete an engineering system report on the functionality of the wastewater treatment system before processing could resume.
The treatment system includes three unlined lagoons. A lagoon leakage analysis, submitted to DEQ in 2005, indicated there was no significant leakage from two of the lagoons, but the results were inconclusive for the third.
The analysis recommended that lagoon be retested, but the facility closed soon after.
How to comment
DEQ will hold a public hearing on Foster Farms’ proposed water quality permit for its Creswell facility at 4 p.m. Monday, Aug. 29, over Zoom.
Instructions for joining the Zoom meeting can be found at: https://www.oregon.gov/deq/get-involved/documents/083122FosterFarms.pdf.
Or, call in to the meeting at: 888-475-4499.
Comments also may be mailed to Trinh Hansen, DEQ water quality permit coordinator, at 4026 Fairview Industrial Drive SE, Salem, OR 97302; faxed to 503-373-7944; or emailed to trinh.hansen@deq.oregon.gov
Comments must be received by 5 p.m. on Aug. 31.
Tracy Loew is a reporter at the Statesman Journal. She can be reached at tloew@statesmanjournal.com, 503-399-6779 or on Twitter at @Tracy_Loew.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Hearing set for Foster Farms slaughterhouse permit after public outcry
