Odor, flies at egg farms draw neighbors’ anger
By Doug Fletcher
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA – For now, things stay the same at DeCoster’s.

After hearing six hours of testimony Wednesday – and being told another six could be yet to come – a state board adjourned action on an appeal of a permit allowing egg farming operations in Turner until March 31.

The people appealing the permit, more than a dozen Turner families who live near the DeCoster and former DeCoster farms, say they don’t want to shut down the operation. They just want the stench of manure to go away, along with the flies that breed in it.

Once the session at the Department of Agriculture concluded, an attorney representing the families said he’ll file a Superior Court lawsuit against the farms Thursday or Friday in Auburn.

The lawyer, Kenneth Whittaker, said he’ll ask a jury to decide on damages, and ask the judge to order the farms take steps to eliminate manure odor and flies that his clients say plague their existence.

The farms belong, or did, to Austin “Jack” DeCoster.

For several hours Wednesday, DeCoster’s neighbors detailed how the stench of manure at the farms is so bad that it would sometimes wake them from their sleep. They showed photos of gallon-size fly traps nearly filled to the brim with the pests. They told of how the odor and flies combined to ruin cookouts and pool parties and keep their children from hosting friends.

Members of the Nutrient Management Review Board listened intently, often peppering witnesses with questions of their own.

At one point, Elizabeth Blackwood, who lives on Route 4, displayed bags filled with fly paper covered with carcasses. The bugs get so thick at times, she said, that she has to change the papers that hang throughout her home sometimes daily, and always within three days.

Another neighbor, Michael Alexander, said years of living with the farms’ stench and squadrons of ‘thousands of flies” have affected his health to the point where he’s been prescribed antidepressants.

“Why can’t I sleep with my windows open?” he asked, then answered his own question: Because of the “disgusting stench.”

In all, more than a half-dozen people who live near the 1,500-acre Plains Road egg complexes detailed their complaints and concerns.

Then an expert witness hired by Whittaker challenged DeCoster’s methods of handling and storing the manure generated by the farms’ 4 million laying hens.

So-called “best management practices” weren’t working there, he said. Even manure in newer “high-rise” chicken houses wasn’t drying as it would with proper venting, said John H. Martin, Jr., who has written manuals for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, consults for EPA contractors, and has studied and taught about animal-waste issues for decades.

“If it works properly,” he said of manure management, odor is minimal and flies are hard pressed to find places to breed.

After visiting the farms, he said manure storage sheds and the high-rise chicken houses, where manure drops to the first level, were not functioning as they should in terms of controlling odor and flies.

Later Martin sparred with Bill Knowles, DeCoster’s lawyer, who challenged Martin’s views on nearly every front.

Whittaker followed suit when the state Department of Agriculture called Bill Seekins as its first witness to support the permit issued to DeCoster that allow the farms to handle manure. The department was in the position of defending the permit.

Seekins wrote much of the law dealing with best management practices. He was quizzed about how the state determines if practices are effective, and how it defines effective. Later, lawyers from both sides questioned Seekins about composting the manure and whether that might be feasible.

The state will continue with its defense when the sessions resumes at 9 a.m. March 31.