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Saturday, September 17, 2011

Environment - St. Joe Co. to IDEM: Enforce law at egg farm; Pick of the Chick accused of violating Clean Water Act

This March 5, 2009 ILB entry was headed "Pick of the Chick in the news again," and includes references two earlier ILB entries.

Today Erin Blasko of the South Bend Tribune reports in a story that begins:

The St. Joseph County Health Department once again is requesting that the Indiana Department of Environmental Management force a local egg producer to comply with the Clean Water Act or shut the producer down, according a letter obtained by The Tribune.

In the letter, dated Sept. 1 and addressed to IDEM's commissioner, Thomas Easterly, county health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Felger accuses Pick of the Chick of violating the act via the illicit release of liquid waste at its facility on Madison Road in Madison Township.

According to the letter, the company pumps the water it uses to wash its eggs into a confinement building, mixes it with liquid chicken manure, then releases it into a field that drains into the St. Joseph River, posing a public health risk.

As part of its permitting process, IDEM ordered the company to dig lagoons to collect the waste in 2008, according to the letter, but it has not done so -- a fact that continues to frustrate the health department.

"Since 2008, we have repeatedly requested that IDEM ... require that (Pick of the Chick) comply with the law or close the facility," Felger writes. "We cannot wait until the unsanitary conditions at this facility cause an outbreak of disease to effectively enforce the laws designed to protect public health."

In a separate letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, the health department also requests that officials there monitor IDEM's success in addressing non-compliance at Pick of the Chick.

For background, see the exhaustive investigative report by Clark Kauffman of The Des Moines Register, linked in this Sept. 2, 2011 ILB entry.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 17, 2011 09:51 PM
Posted to Environment