Residents of Fulton County, Pennsylvania are fighting a proposed factory farm with 8,700 hogs under five acres of buildings.
The factory farm, also known as a concentrated animal feed operation (CAFO), is being targeted for a mountain meadow that drains into two tributaries of Big Cove Creek.
Fulton County resident Marjorie Hudson is leading the opposition to the facility.
Her home neighbors the proposed facility. She has garnered more than 500 signatures in opposition to the factory farm.
The company that is proposing the facility is Country View Family Farms which is owned by Hatfield.Food Group.
Hudson first heard of the factory farm proposal in February 2014 when she read that the company was applying for a permit for a nutrient management plan.
“The nutrient management plan didn’t manage any nutrients,” Hudson told Russell Mokhiber during an interview on This Week in Morgan County. “But we were told that if the application was administratively correct, it would be approved. And it was approved on March 13, 2014.”
“I thought that the permits would protect the public,” Hudson said. “But we don’t know where the waste is being shipped to. No reports are required to be filed with the state. And if there are no reports, the public has no way to find out what happens to the waste.”
Hudson is appealing the approval of that plan.
Hudson is a conservative Republican. And she says that many conservatives in her county are also opposed to the factory farm.
“The regulations that should handle this problem are being bent to the will of the company,” Hudson said. “This project is not appropriate for the site they have chosen. It’s ecologically sensitive area on a mountain meadow filled with water.”
Even though the company’s name is Country View Family Farms, Hudson said that it is not a family farm.
“It’s a factory,” she said. “They want to put 8,700 hogs under five acres of building on the mountain meadow. Those buildings are going to be over manure pits. They will be contained and then hauled out. Those pits are going to contain 11.4 million gallons of manure and waste annually that will be land applied locally within a four mile radius of the property. They are going to be taking a lot of water out of the water table just for those hogs alone.”