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Thursday, March 05, 2009
Environment - "Pick of the Chick" in the news again
Updating these two ILB entries on "Pick of the Chick," Alicia Gallegos of the South Bend Tribune reports today:
A St. Joseph County farm has made some progress toward waste disposal compliance, according to a state official, after decades of reportedly violating health requirements.Pick of the Chick egg farm, 16901 Madison Road, was the subject of a January Tribune article reporting that the farm had received orders beginning in 1991 to build a system to collect wash water from eggs and chicken waste.
Despite repeated fines and orders by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the farm had never completely complied, according to Marc Nelson, St. Joseph County Health department environmental manager, and had for years allowed chicken waste to overflow into county ditches, streams and groundwater. * * *
Pick of the Chick's compliance was also a discussion subject at the most recent St. Joseph County Agricultural Advisory Board meeting.
Nelson told the board that since the recent Tribune article and a resulting editorial about the farm, IDEM officials have stepped up their regulation.
Nelson said IDEM has expressed embarrassment for the decades-long case of noncompliance and the lack of enforcement.
"A couple articles in the newspaper seemed to get action very quickly," Nelson told the board.
The Pick of the Chick case has since been reassigned to different case managers, he said, who seem to have a better commitment to regulating the issue. Nelson expressed his own confidence that if the issue is not soon resolved, the farm could actually be closed.
IDEM officials plan an upcoming joint inspection of the farm with the health department, according to Sneed, "to help the farm understand what they need to do."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 5, 2009 10:20 AM
Posted to Environment