A coalition of residents and farm groups is once again challenging a recently permitted chicken farm near Scio in Linn County. The petition, filed Monday in the Linn County Circuit Court, is seeking to reverse a state-issued permit.

The challenge follows a yearslong saga between Oregon’s Department of Agriculture and local residents and farmers, who have pushed back against plans for a chicken farm they say could pollute the local drinking water and a nearby river.

J-S Ranch is proposing to build 11 large barns to raise about 3.4 million broiler chickens per year at a 60-acre property near Scio, a farming community in the middle of the Willamette Valley.

In November, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued J-S Ranch a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, permit. That’s a water quality permit intended to protect surface and ground water by limiting the amount of manure, wastewater and nutrients that can be discharged from a farm.

That was after Oregon agricultural officials had temporarily pulled a previous version of the permit for reconsideration, ahead of a court challenge.

The latest challenge to the revised permit argues it does not address concerns about ammonia emitted from the chicken barns, which could settle into the soil and waters of the North Santiam River, according to the local residents. The farm would be sited about a quarter-mile from that river.

While the chicken farm would be required to install underground moisture sensors, there’s no requirement for surface water sensors to detect manure runoff.

“We shouldn’t be opening new factory farms,” said Amy van Saun, an attorney at the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, a group representing local families and farmers. “We should be transitioning away from that manner of raising animals into one that is actually truly sustainable, really works with the environment that is in and is restorative rather than exploitative of the land and the communities that they’re in.”

Van Saun also alleges the modified permit fails to comply with requirements under Senate Bill 85, which Gov. Kotek signed into law in 2023. That law included stronger regulations for large CAFO-permitted farms, such as stricter water use and construction requirements.

A spokesperson for Oregon’s Department of Agriculture told OPB it cannot comment on pending litigation.

Eric Simon, the owner of J-S Ranch and longtime chicken farmer, told OPB this time around, he’s confident the state’s decision will hold in water in court.

“I know the state Department of Agriculture put a lot of time and effort and resources into making sure that they really made something that was truly defensible in court,” he said. “I don’t know what (the opposition’s) plan is in court but I’m confident that the state has addressed whatever may come up.”

Commercial chicken industry groups have advocated for farms like J-S Ranch because the Pacific Northwest does not produce enough chicken and can’t keep up with demand. They say most of the chicken that’s sold and consumed in the Northwest is trucked in from other areas of the country.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2024/12/30/residents-farmers-oregon-chicken-farm-linn-county/