Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Input Sought On Proposed Hog Farm
Thursday, September 23, 2004
By NANCY WARD
Finger Lakes Times
GALEN — Residents concerned about the impact of a proposed 2,000-plus head hog farm will get the chance to have their concerns heard tonight.
A public meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. at the municipal building on South Park Street in Clyde.
Galen Supervisor Leo Jenkins said a property owner on Tyre Road has applied to the town Planning Board for a permit for the operation but no decision has been made.
“We need to do a little more research on it,� Jenkins said.
He said the property has been farmed in the past and most recently was used as a holding area for cows bought at one sale and taken to another.
“It’s zoned agricultural now but there is some concern about the wells surrounding the area,� Jenkins said. “We need to find out if it is compatible with the area.�
“It’s not the average farm for this area,� he added.
Santo Montemorano Sr., who owns property adjacent to the proposed farm, said he is worried that runoff from the farm will contaminate the water supply in the area. His sons also own land nearby.
He said many of the wells nearby are fed from an aquifer that runs under the gravel and the property bordering the Clyde River and wetlands.
“There’s only 70-some acres, and we have questions about the disposal of waste from the operation,� he said.
He said the farm would house more than 2,000 pigs that will be raised in buildings until it’s time to send them to slaughter.
“It’s a factory farm not a farm as we know it,� he said.
“We’re all farmers around [here] and we have the right to farm but not to pollute,� he said.
Montemorano said with that number of pigs being raised indoors they would need antibiotics to keep them healthy.
“They’ll bring them in, feed them, sell them and all that is left is the waste,� he said.
He said he does not allow sludge or other possible contaminants to be used on his farmland.
“For 50 years we’ve protected the water supply,� he said, adding that a farm of such as the new operation could ruin it overnight.
“It’s just not a suitable site,� Montemorano said.