Sides square off in debate over new Allen Harim plant

For residents who oppose a chicken deboning plant at the site of the former Vlasic pickle plant near Millsboro, there is no middle ground.

Allen Harim Foods officials say the proposed use is a drastic change from a previously approved poultry processing plant. They also say a brownfield on the site will be monitored to protect area wells. But those statements have not convinced opponents.

“This community is terrified that the door will be opened to a processing plant and distribution center,” said Maria Payan, who represents Socially Responsible Agricultural Project. “You can't add more pollution to this area, because it's overburdened with it.”

Nearby residents – many also opposed to the earlier processing plant – said they fear pollution will migrate from the site to their homes' wells. They also say they don't trust state environmental officials to enforce regulations.

Board places matter on April 16 agenda

It will up to the Sussex County Board of Adjustment to sift through the mountain of information presented to them during a March 19 public hearing and render a decision on future activities at the plant.

After the three-hour hearing, the board voted to leave the record open until the end of working hours Monday, April 9, to receive additional local, state or federal agency input and to allow for one resident to submit a written comment. The matter has been placed back on the board's Monday, April 16 agenda. Meetings start at 7 p.m. in the county administration building, 2 The Circle, Georgetown.

Allen Harim Foods LLC has filed for a special-use exception to convert 50,000 square feet of the 453,000-square-foot building into a deboning operation. Another 20,000 square feet of the facility is being renovated into the company's corporate headquarters.

The facility, used as a pickle processing plant for 40 years, is on land zoned HI-1, heavy industrial.

Under the proposal, processed chicken would be trucked from Allen Harim's Harbeson plant to Millsboro for deboning, packaging and shipping. The plant would process about 2 million pounds of chicken operating with one shift. Officials said they would hire 165 employees.

The waste bone material would be shipped back to the Harbeson plant for disposal.

Spray irrigation for disposal

Allen Harim attorney Robert Gibbs said the suggested use of the facility has changed drastically from the proposed poultry processing plant that the board approved in 2013.

At the top of the list, he said, is the amount of wastewater generated. He said the deboning process would produce 40,000 gallons of wastewater per day, while the processing plant would have generated 1.2 million gallons per day. That water would have been treated and discharged into a nearby stream.

Under the proposal presented to the board, all treated wastewater would be disposed of through a spray irrigation process on an adjacent 29-acre field. The plant has a 2-million-gallon lagoon for wastewater storage when spray irrigation is not possible or permitted, such as when the ground is frozen or during times of excessive rain. Tim VanBrunt, an Allen Harim engineer, said the plant would not be permitted to spray on consecutive days.

Until the plant would be fully operational and a spray irrigation permit was issued by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, wastewater would be trucked to the Harbeson plant for treatment. VanBrunt said the process would require five to six trucks per day.

He said the company would have to follow a strict nutrient management plan to ensure that nitrogen in the treated wastewater would be absorbed by crops planted in the field.

In the record are letters of support from Delaware Department of Agriculture Secretary Michael Scuse, Sen. Gerald Hocker, Delmarva Poultry Industry and Delaware Farm Bureau.

Monitoring a brownfield site

A poultry deboning facility is permitted in LI-2, or light-industrial zoning, but not in HI-1 heavy-industrial zoning. The Sussex County planning and zoning director can issue an opinion that the operation could be potentially hazardous, setting into motion the need for a special-use exception. That's what Sussex Planning and Zoning Director Janelle Cornwell did in the case of the Allen Harim application. “That's a real head scratcher,” Gibbs said.

“This is not a potentially hazardous use of this property. It's not even a close call,” Gibbs said. “It's a well thought-out use of the property, a good use of an industrial property and a good job producer.”

After purchasing the property, the company entered into a brownfield remediation agreement with DNREC.

Gibbs said the company was granted a certificate of remedy in May 2014 for its work on the brownfield. He said no remediation was required, but DNREC required the installation of several monitoring wells with sampling and reporting of the findings over the past eight quarters. “It's looking very stable,” he said.

DNREC has approved the company's request to reduce monitoring to twice a year.

Payan: Contaminants on site

Payan said there is a health problem because there are still contaminants on the site. “As they spray on the fields, pollution can move up to one foot per day,” she said.

The contaminants date to the plant's use as a pickle plant. “But this is from a seasonal operation, which is a much less intense use than proposed,” she said.

She said the spray field is an easy pathway to contaminating nearby residential wells.

“Thousands of people now live within a two-mile radius. It is much different than when Vlasic was built. This is simply not a good fit in the character of the community,” Payan said.

Payan said a plume of chemical contamination from Vlasic moved underground in 1991 off the site toward the Possum Point community's residential wells. “The community was never told. There is no trust in DNREC, so the community is here to plead with you, as their source of protection,” she said.

Payan said records show arsenic, chloride, chromium, cobalt, TCE and nitrates at the site. “There are health effects associated when these pollutants migrate offsite toward the private wells of the community. This is a vulnerable community,” she said.

Allen Harim officials dispute Payan's assertion. According to a press release issued by the company, the metals remain in the soil and are not predisposed to migration offsite with groundwater flow. “Soil does not move with groundwater, and heavy metals do not move with groundwater. For the most part, these metals have been stabilized and declining over the years. All of this is regulated by DNREC,” the press release noted.

Attorney: Board must rely on experts

Gibbs reminded the board its mandate is to render a decision based on land-use and zoning standards. He said case law dictates that the board must rely on expertise from state agencies.

“You are not experts in environmental and health issues. The administrative agencies will be there for that, and if there is a hazard they will address it,” Gibbs said.

The planning and zoning office asked state agencies for comments prior to the meeting, Cornwell said.

Tom Bretton of Millsboro said relying on experts such as DNREC officials is problematic. “Our experts are failing us, and we are looking to you to fill that void to protect us. Stand for us and not the industry,” he said.

Keith Steck of Milton said the two major issues center around water quality and water pollution. “Are people's health and water quality worth more than one company's profits?” he asked. “They have not proven to be a good steward of the environment. If we can't trust them in Harbeson, how can we trust them in Millsboro?

“They mentioned future growth. What are they going to be doing? It's legitimate to ask them that,” Steck said.

Charlotte Reed of Rehoboth Beach said using spray fields in Delaware is not a best-practice technology. She said officials need to find a better way for farmers and the industry to function in Sussex County. Reed also requested that the public record be left open for further comments.

Resident files complaint against board

Following the hearing, John Austin, a retired EPA chemist from Lewes, took two steps. He filed a complaint against the county board of adjustment for bias, and he petitioned state environmental officials to render the certificate of completion for the brownfield work to be null and void based on his analysis of groundwater well data.

Austin said questions to those who testified from some of the board members were biased and those members should be removed from further deliberations on the application. He specifically named board member John Mills.

He said Allen Harim officials' assertion that contamination is not moving off the site is not supported by the data he has studied from 2013 to 2017. He said a monitoring well near Iron Branch Road detected arsenic and nitrates. “Groundwater passing that point is headed off site to the homes across the road,” he said.

Further, Austin said, all homes in the Possum Point community across from the plant should be tested for chemicals, including arsenic, cobalt and nitrates.

KEY DATES

2011

Allen Harim purchases Seaford-based Allen Family Foods, founded in 1919

2012

August – Vlasic, Pinnacle Foods, closes Millsboro plant

2013

April – Allen Harim announces $100 million plan to convert Millsboro facility to poultry processing plant

2014

Allen Harim purchases Millsboro plant

2015

Allen Harim withdraws plans for processing plant

2018

January – Allen Harim announces plans to close Seaford operation and move corporate headquarters to Millsboro and hatchery to Dagsboro

March – Public hearing on plans for deboning operation at Millsboro site

2018 proposed deboning plant                   2013 approved processing plant

Employees

165                                                                               700-plus

Trucks

16 per day*                                                                50-85 per day

Footprint

50,000 square feet                                453,000 square feet + 79,000 sq. ft addition

Wastewater

40,000 gallons per day; spray irrigation;             1.2 million gallons per day;

no stream discharge                                                stream discharge

*5-6 additional trucks used for transporting wastewater to Harbeson plant on a temporary basis