Post on 06-May-2018
2634
BEFORE THE
STATE CONSERVATION COMMISSION
OF PA PUBLIC HEARING
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IN RE: FACILITY ODOR MANAGEMENT
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BEFORE: ROSS ORNER, Chair
Douglas A. Goodlander,: Member
Karl Dymond, Member
LOCATION: Hampton Inn
1582 Beeline Drive
DuBois, PA 15801
HEARING: Monday, October 8, 2007 •
7:02 p.m.
WITNESSES: Gwen Wills
Reporter: Rhonda K. Thorpe
Any reproduction of this transcript
is prohibited without authorization
by the certifying agency
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A P P E A R A N
DOUGLAS A. GOODLANDER, Director
Nutrient Management Program
Agriculture Building, Room 407
2301 North Cameron Street
Harrisburg, PA 17110-9408
KARL DYMOND
Odor Management Program Coordinator
PDA Region 3 Office
Route 92 South, P.O. Box C
Tunkhannock, PA 18 657
Also Present:
William Clouser
State Conservation Commission
Altoona, PA •
:harles H. Allen
County Extension Director
Penn State University-Ag. Sciences
Multi Service Center, Suite 210
650 Leonard Street
Clearfield, PA 16830-3243
Michelle Tate, DEP
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I N D E X
OPENING REMARKS
By Mr. Orne r
TESTIMONY
. By Mrs . W i l l s
DISCUSSION AMONG PARTIES :
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E X H I B I T S
Number Description
NONE OFFERED
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P R O C E E D I N G S
CHAIR:
Good evening. I'd like to welcome you to
the State Conservation Commission and we'll call it
the Commission from now on. Public hearing on
proposed rulemaking to establish •'the new subchapter G
in 25 Pennsylvania Code, chapter 83 relating to
facility odor management. My name is Ross Orner. I'm
Commissioner on the State Conservation Commission
representing the farming industry in Pennsylvania. I
call this hearing to order at 7:02 p.m.
With me tonight are court reporters
Rhonda Thorpe, Doug Goodlander and Karl Dymond and
Bill Clouser is from the Commission Staff. And
Michelle Tate is from DEP working on this hearing
tonight also.
The purpose of this hearing is for the
Commission to formally accept testimony on the
facility odor management proposed rulemaking. In
addition to this hearing the Commission will conduct a
public hearing on Thursday, October 11, 2007 in
iancaster, PA to accept testimony on this proposed
rulemaking. The Commission proposed this rulemaking
to address the concerns of communities in the
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Commonwealth about odors generated at certain
agricultural operations as required by Act 38 of 2005.
The proposed rulemaking requires concentrated animal
operations, CAOs and concentrated animal feeding
operation CAFOs to develop odor management plans for
their new or expanding manure storage facilities and
animal housing facilities prior to construction. The
proposed rulemaking would require a two-step process
in the development of an odor management plan
including an evaluation using various criteria to
determine the likely odor impacts followed by the
selection of any necessary odor management BMPs, which
may be needed. The regulations would authorize use of
an Odor Site Index developed by odor management
experts from Pennsylvania State University and
approved by the Commission to perform this evaluation
and the use of BMPs from approved sources. BMPs are
best management practices. I'm not sure if that was
spelled out in here, but ---. The Odor Site Index and
BMPs are described in the Commission's proposed draft
or odor management guidance, which along with the
proposed facility odor management rulemaking was
advertised for public comment in the September 1st,
2007 issue of the Pennsylvania bulletin.
In development of this proposed
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rulemaking the Commission met with various
individuals, farm organizations, citizens groups,
environmental organizations and agricultural advisory
work groups and industry groups to discuss the various
issues considered for the proposed regulations and to
gain their input. In addition a 12-member odor
management committee of the nutrient management
advisory board met routinely and provided input to the
Commission on the proposed rulemaking. The nutrient
management advisory board reviewed the proposed
rulemaking and recommended that it be forwarded to the
Commission for approval. The Commission approved the
proposal rulemaking at its March 14th, 2007 meeting.
On September 1st, 2007 the Commission published these
proposed regulations for public review and comment in
the Pennsylvania Bulletin. In addition notices for
this hearing and the hearing in Lancaster were
published in the DuBois Courier Express and the
Lancaster Intelligencer newspapers. In order to give
everyone an equal opportunity to comment on this
proposal I would like to establish the following
ground rules. I will call upon the first witness who
have I will first call upon the witnesses who have
pre-registered to testify at this hearing. After
hearing from these witnesses I will provide any other
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interested parties with the opportunity to testify as
time allows. The testimony is limited to five minutes
for each witness. Organizations are requested to
designate one witness to present testimony on its
behalf. Each witness is asked to submit three written
copies of his or her testimony to aid in transcribing
the hearing. Please hand me your: copies prior to
presenting your testimony. Please state your name,
address and affiliation for the record prior to
presenting your testimony. We would appreciate your
help by spelling names and terms that may not be
generally familiar so that the transcript can be as
accurate as possible. Because the purpose of a
hearing is to receive comments on the proposal the
Commission or program staff may question witnesses in
order to better understand their testimony, however,
the witnesses may not question the Commission or
Commonwealth agency staff.
In addition to or in place of oral
testimony presented at today's hearing interested
persons may submit written comments on this proposal.
All comments must be received by the Commission by
October 31st, 2007. Comments should be addressed to
the State Conservation Commission,- Agriculture
Building, Room 405, 2 3 0.1 North Cameron Street,
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Harrisburg, PA, 17110. Comments submitted by-
facsimile will not. be accepted, however, comments may
be submitted to the Commission by e-mail right there.
This information is provided at the front of the
meeting room.
All comments received at this hearing as
well as written comments received by October 31st,
2007 will be considered by the Commission and will be
included in the comment response document, which will
be reviewed by the Commission before it takes final
action on this regulation.
Anyone interested in a" copy of the
transcript of this hearing may contact the reporter
here this evening to arrange a purchase of a copy. I
would like would like now to call the first
witness, and the first witness is Gwen Wills.
MS. WILLS:
Okay. I don't really have anything in
hand to I can't prepare something that I can't
submit. My name is Gwen Wills, W-I-L-L-S. I live in
Summerville, Summerville address. I actually live
over in Clarion County. My husband and I operate a
farm we have 50 some cattle and about 16 head of
;quine. Our concern is mainly that there will be some
reasonable safeguards in the regulations that will
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give opportunities to categorize, I will say,
frivolous complaints. We see this a lot in the horse
community with urban sprawl and people moving into the
country that people who move out into the country and
then they don't like the flies and the occasional
As far as your as far as this being
tied to the nutrient management regulations that's
already been instituted I think that personally
that that's a fair assumption, that it be tied to
those other regulations for compliance. If you have
to comply, you know, because of the number of units of
animals, small acreage that type of thing I think
that's reasonable and then you have opportunity if
there are complaints to manage those odor issues
through those. So really our main concern is a few
horses in somebody's back yard and the neighbor kids
mad at the neighbor kid and how one phone call could
hurt because there's flies in the kitchen. I know
that sounds simplistic but that's a big concern. As
the horse industry statewide my husband and I travel a
lot across the state with horse people because of a
volunteer group that we work with and education that
we do. And I just feel it's really important there be
some teeth built into this or some safeguards. I'm
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not sure how to do that. I wish I could let it all
out and say, here '.s what you do, but I think that is
something that really needs to be looked at.
MR. GOODLANDER:
Gwen, can I ask you
MS. WILLS:
MR. GOODLANDER:
. just . I'm not going to really
ask you anything, but you had mentioned that you
didn't have anything in writing. You don't have to
have anything in writing. What you* say here tonight
will be recorded and so you don't have to submit
anything. If you have any if you had something
different or whatever you could provide that in
writing if you care to, but just because you don't
have it in writing .
MS. WILLS:
They said something long run thing. I'm
not an attorney and this is you know, these are
regulations that need to be in compliance, you know,
with federal statutes. I just I don't know what
other states have done to safeguard something like
-his or if they have, but I know one instance right
now over in Clarion County where they're really being
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harassed for a few horses. You know, she does not
meet the criteria of the eight and it's it seems
to me as though it is harassment, because I know this
woman. And I don't think she's malicious or doing
anything wrong.
MR. GOODLANDER:
So the safeguards that you're talking
about are safeguards to protect farmers from
harassment that might be
MS. WILLS:
MR. GOODLANDER:
undue harassment that this regulation
may provide neighbors to use to try to harass them?
. MS. WILLS:
Correct.
MR. GOODLANDER:
Those farm neighbors.
MS. WILLS:
Correct. I think that pretty much is our
big concern. Horses are open space as far as we're
concerned. At this stage in the game in Pennsylvania
the horse industry is the fastest growing or one of
the fastest growing segments today. Trying to keeping
open space, keeping hay and grain fields open that
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could be used for food production down the line. It's
keeping kind of urban sprawl at bay. It's an
opportunity to have kids out in the barn rather
hanging out at the video parlors, and it's really
important that people get reconnected in the land and
horses are a perfect opportunity to do that, even
urban or suburban-type folks will have a little
engagement with horses where they wouldn't necessarily
buy a calf. So it's very important to us to see
it's the way we grew up. We didn't think that was a
bad thing, and we do the same thing with our children.
We have horses and learn about taking care of farm
animals and dealing with the cleaning up after them
and being good citizens. It's really important to us
to see regulations safeguard horse ownership.
MR. GOODLANDER:
Thank you.
MS. WILLS:
You're welcome.
Jack, do you want to say anything?
MR. ALLEN:
anything.
I am prohibited by federal law to say
CHAIR:
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Oh, okay. With no other witnesses
present on behalf of the State Conservation Commission
I hereby adjourn this hearing at 7:29 p.m. "Thank you
all for coming.
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HEARING CONCLUDED AT•7:30 P.M.
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Sargent's Court Reporting Service, Inc(814) 536-8908
C E R T I F I C A T E
I hereby certify that the
foregoing proceeding iolt \.X/fVlOf\iI
was reported by me, that I have read this
transcript on iOltblcT? and I attest
that this transcript is; a true and
accurate record of the proceeding.
Vy^c^k /"',u'
"7Court Reporter
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CTATE COLLEGE, PA
.HwT.unAYSBURG.PA
-oiLcn-y, PAIlARRISEURG, PA
210 Main Streetihnstown, ?A 15901
GKEEHSBURG, PA
• PKBLAXVELPEIDI, PA
• C0r.':EL3:rr\ PA.
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