Monday, January 09, 2006
NO CORPORATE CHICKENS FOR NICHOLS!!
The people have spoken. This is what democracy looks like!
Chicken farm not coming to Nichols; Operation owners say they are not interested in locating anywhere in Tioga County
By L.D. GLOVER Tioga County Editor
NICHOLS - A large, commercial chicken-farming operation tentatively slated to be located in the East River Road area of the Town of Nichols has apparently fallen by the wayside - a victim of lack of public acceptance.
That is what the Morning Times has been able to confirm by talking to town residents, town officials, and a spokesman for the proposed operation.
“We are not interested in Tioga County, anymore,” said Peter Drost of Beamsville, Ontario, Canada. “We have met some good people in the area, but they just don’t understand business and agriculture.”
He said the Drosts, who operate a similar chicken farm in Ontario near Toronto, planned to locate a farm on a 35-acre tract of land on East River Road that they were purchasing for about $200,000 in a private transaction from Martin Kuhlman of the Town of Nichols.
The plan was for the farm to raise up to 180,000 live chickens for shipping to a market New York City.
Kuhlman, who could not be reached for comment Sunday night, is the former operator of Van Winkle Farm, and is an uncle of Nichols Town Councilman Matthew Kuhlman.
Numerous people in the town expressed anger and suspicion regarding apparent secrecy regarding the sale, but Drost denied any secrecy was involved.
He explained that the family looked elsewhere after a proposal to bring the operation to the hamlet of Lounsberry at the Tioga County Industrial Park near Exit 63 was shot down by the Tioga County Industrial Development Agency during its meeting last August.
At that time, the Drosts were going through the Tioga County Department of Economic Development and planning, Drost said.
“I do not discuss business decisions with newspaper people,” Drost said.
But he added that “The people of Tioga County can sleep well,” because the Drosts are looking elsewhere in New York State to place the farm, and have been since the end of 2005.
According to Morning Times records, in September of last year, the Town of Nichols passed a 90-day moratorium on large commercial farming operations, which Town Supervisor James Branston said would give the town “breathing room” to do some research and determine if anything could be done to restrict such operations.
At a special information meeting held just prior to passage of the moratorium, Wendy Walsh of the Tioga County Soil and Water Conservation Department reported that she and members of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation visited and inspected the Drost family operation in St. Catherine, Ontario, Canada, and found it to be sanitary, well-kept and in compliance with all standards.
“There was dry manure there, which smelled, but not outside the facility and not badly, “ she stated.
On Friday, she reiterated her statement, but said she has heard nothing more regarding the chicken farm since the meeting.
For his part, Drost said no members of the family operation had attended Nichols Town Board meetings, did not have the advantage of living close by.
“But this is not a big conglomerate,” he qualified. “We’re just a family farm.”
However, he added that he believes the fact that the farm is “commercial” frightened area residents into believing a monumental operation would arise in their midst.
Copyright © 2006 Sayre Evening Times