The prospect of commercial chicken houses in a rural area along the Caldwell-Lyon County line prodded some property owners in the vicinity of KY 1272 to ask Caldwell magistrates for help Tuesday morning. They want the fiscal court to look at ways to regulate the operation to minimize negative effects on health and safety.
It was the second airing of opinions about the poultry propsal. A group of about 50 residents from both counties were at the March meeting of the Lyon Fiscal Court raising a list of concerns that led Lyon magistrates to approve a first reading for an ordinance regulating poultry operations, which was extended to include confined swine operations.
The meeting here Tuesday was attended by a smaller group, but all wanted the magistrates to intervene.
Pat Fralick addressed the Caldwell magistrates with a prepared statement that outlined a series of health and safety concerns.
The area of the proposed poultry operation includes several properties that lie in both counties. Fralick told magistrates that while 16 of the poultry houses were apparently planned, as many as four to eight of them would be located in Caldwell County.
In addition to health concerns, involving air and groundwater contamination, the chicken farming operations have the potential to create heavy (semi-trailer) hauling traffic on the rural two-lane county road.
Concerns were expressed as well about the effects on business, tourism and property values.
Magistrate Elbert Bennett said that any livestock operation puts out an odor. “Where will something like this end,” he said, expressing his concern about local regulation for farming operations. “I cannot possibly be for an ordinance right now.”
“This is something that we need to think about,” said Judge/Executive Van Knight. He noted that lack of county water several years earlier had discouraged a Tyson poultry venture into the northern end of the county.
Fralick told the magistrates that the issue is not one of personalities, but safety and her own rights as a property owner to speak up for something that could affect her home, property and community.
Pointing out the magnitude of the traffic issue alone, KY 1272 resident Cindy Dunn observed that 32,000 chickens to supply an operation could be transported to a farmer’s chicken house in one tractor-trailer load. However, in seven weeks, it would take six to seven of tractor-trailer trucks to ship out those same 32,000 fowl. That, she added, would be multiplied by 16 if all the poultry houses were built.
Magistrate George Kilgore noted that several other countis have addressed the issue. “We can’t prohibit this, but we can regulate it,” he said.
“I think we are going to have to look at it,” Knight said. “We are not ready for an ordinance yet, but we will be working on it.”
• Rev. Tom Hughes of Princeton First Baptist Church told the magistrates about plans for the Kentucky Changers to operate in Caldwell and Lyon counties for the 2009-2010 summer seasons.
The group, he said, tackles 15 projects a year, building and repairing homes across a community. The average cost is $1,000 per site, he said, asking magistrates for any support that the county can provide as the Changers Caldwell seasons approach.
• Knight observed that the county may receive $500,000 in tobacco settlement money to extend water lines. “We won’t know until next week or whenever we get a state budget, what we will have,” he said.
• Randy Long was appointed to the County Water District board. He fills the seat vacated by the retirement of Louise Rowland who had been with the organization since 1994. Long is a resident of the Beshear Lake area.
• The fiscal court confirmed the appointment of Clifford Belt and Charles Ray Phelps to the Princeton-Caldwell County Airport Board.
