laughs
[Music]
[Music]
no no
no no no no
[Applause]
no no
we live here on Millbranch Road
and uh just .9 miles from what I call
the Cesspool because that's what it
reminds me of is uh is an open sewage
tank and on a hot summer day I
when the wind is either west southwest
you can't even stand to be out in the
yard here the stench the odor is
nauseating and if the wind remains that
way for a couple of days out of that
direction you can't even be in the house
my family's here for six generations and
my wife's family is at least four in
this area
I grew up next door on the farm next
door to my nephew owns now so it's been
in her family 80 plus years
this piece of property has
been mine and my wife's for
approximately 40 years now we built our
own home here in 1987 we built it
herself so we're not planning on leaving
I'm standing on the farm that at one
time belonged to my great grandfather
and my grandfather was born and raised
here and so was my mom
uh the field behind me is showing the
sludge tank if you can see it and uh
my wife Lynette and myself bought a
piece of property in 1974 we built our
home we raised our family and today we
have family functions and picnics and
all kinds of activities outside
but since the Sledge tank has been here
we've not been able to have those
activities
never know which way the wind's going to
be blowing whether you're going to be
able to have something outside or not
the past year has been a real challenge
I'm 400 yards from the Sledge tank and
on on days when the wind is in our
Direction
it's absolutely impossible to be out in
the yard with your grandson doing
anything I'm an outdoor person I grew up
with chicken manure but this isn't
chicken manure this is more like a human
sludge human septic tank smell
that when they're stirring it up to load
it you hear the motor running so you
know you just will go in the house
because it's time to lock the doors my
wife and I have lived here for 49 years
and uh
part of the reason that we're here is
because it's a reasonably quiet area
this tank situation has disrupted that
it smells like hell is cracked open
and that the the stench is just settling
all over our neighborhood I know that
that sounds extreme but it will make you
sick if you stay out in it I live a
quarter mile from the Cesspool tank on
Porter Mill Road
and I moved here 22 years ago from
Philadelphia
to a nice quiet neighborhood which used
to be the Envy of all my friends and
family but not anymore you can't really
understand the smell unless you live
here it smells like ammonia infused
Rotting Flesh
I want to explain a little bit about
what we've discovered
um when we looked at the results of the
analysis of this dissolved air flotation
material which is what is being stored
in the tank this material we'll call daf
daf is a product of the production of
pet food from poultry waste and other
animal waste so animal parts go into a
plant they process it they make they
come up with this product that's used
for pet food and the Wastewater
is treated by bubbling air up through it
which strips out the organic material
and keeps it out of the water where they
dump the rest of their Wastewater
so it reduces the impact on the adjacent
Waterway but that
stripped out material forms a slurry
some people call it a sludge it is not
big chunks of anything but it's
basically a semi-liquid material that is
extremely high in organic matter
with the odor
it is particularly bad when they stir
the product up in the tank and there is
a cannon on the top of the tank that
shoots out this blackish liquidy
material
and when that happens
the odor can travel as far as mordella
Springs people have smelled it as far
away as three four miles
the daff that goes into that tank is
from many different sources from many
different states so we don't exactly
know what the makeup of the daf in that
tank is
I live about a half a mile from the tank
and it affects my life every day and
every night
I do get a lot of odor when the wind is
blowing right and it's it's terrible
it's frankly terrible I don't think I've
smelled anything as foul as this before
so that's what we have to look forward
to now I enjoying the Maryland Eastern
Shore in a rural Eastern Shore to the
stench of a cesspool
the traffic the tank trucks go up and
down our road all hours of the day and
night
yesterday when I was sleeping around 12
30 a.m a truck went by and they go by my
house pretty quickly my house is only
about 40 feet from the road and it
literally shakes my house on the
foundation my most memorable moment this
summer was when I was cutting the grass
out here along the edge of the road and
one of the tankers came by today what I
thought was a little bit
of an unreasonable rate of speed for
this area
and I felt that I literally could have
reached out and touched it when it went
by
you don't need an alarm clock you can
wake up at four o'clock in the morning
to the first sounds and then after that
they can be running till 11 12 o'clock
at night so you times that by seven days
that's not what we were told riggin road
that these tankers come up and down I
stopped the other day and measured it
took a tape measure up borrowed my
wife's tape measure and took it up there
measured 15 feet wide that's 180 inches
then I measured my truck it's 79 inches
my truck is a just a Yukon SUV
79 inches wide with a 10 inch rear view
mirror
so I already know what the instrument
issue is the issue is between a car and
a Truck there's not room for those 18
wheel tankers on a road there's no
substructure to withstand that weight so
somebody's got to get off the grass when
these trucks come by one of them already
got off and turned over just a few weeks
ago trying to pass a car on rigging road
but the road's 180 inches wide my little
SUV my GMC Yukon is 79 inches plus a
rear view mirror that's 89 inches right
then these 18 wheel trucks are 102
inches with a two foot
a two foot River mirror on the side of
it now it doesn't matter the outside
rear view mirrors are relevant the
inside rear view mirrors is what's
relevant right so when they pass
you get 35 inches negative somebody's
got to be that much clearance off of the
road there's no shoulder or rigging Road
nothing just a short bit of grass which
right now this time of the year is
nothing but mud and ditches which are
full of water right now one of them
turned over on his side when it was at
about three weeks ago wasn't it trying
to go around a vehicle over here one
night and we'd only have school in
progress right now and we've already had
three trucks in the ditches you can't
meet these trucks so what's going to
happen when the school buses start
running and
these trucks are running meeting our
children on the road with
nowhere to go
[Music]
[Music]
when it snows and we have bad weather
and we have black ice on the road out
here I've had two accidents in the time
that I've lived here where I've had
Vehicles end up in my front yard due to
the black ice one of them actually
flipped upside down and I'm just afraid
that there's going to be an accident and
we're going to end up with a tank or
truck in our front yard
deterioration of the road I think is a
major
factor in this in that you you're able
to see ruts on both sides of Road off in
into the grass area
you're seeing cracking all along the
edge of the roads
when the tankers go by at night as they
frequently do after dark or before light
I think it's a definite danger to
someone in meeting traffic on this road
in that we have no lines on this road
either on the sides or down the center
this particular location does not
support the transportation of this
material to it by large tanker trucks
because of the inadequacy of the roads
and this leads to a really high
potential for vehicular accidents and in
the case of a high-speed accident and
some of these trucks have been
observed to be traveling at a very high
rate of speed a collision could result
in a rupture of the of the tank that the
truck's tank and a spill directly into
one of these little ditches that flows
straight to rawastica Creek so you know
my recommendation would be you just
don't put a facility like that here the
wycomico environmental trust has been
following with great interest the appeal
of the neighbors and the issues
involving this industrial sized tank
we are very concerned about the health
of the neighborhood of the rear was
Dakota Creek
and concerned that there is a high level
of risk involved in
this tank overflowing it's not protected
by a berm around it and so in a heavy
rainstorm or a hurricane it could easily
overflow and damage the creek
foreign
[Music]
this is not normal farming activity as
we were told it would be this is
industrial activity
we were led to believe that this would
be done only certain times of the year
and we have been under a non-star
Non-Stop assault since April this is not
an agricultural business
this is in an industrial business which
that permit was not approved for so why
is it still happening it's it's a
disgrace it's an embarrassment like I
said we don't even have friends over
anymore
because it's it's embarrassing it really
is we don't want them to come to our
house to have to smell what we have to
go through well we have to suffer
through for what six months now seven
months and again we were lied to this
was only going to be in operation for
what three or four months we were told
all lies absolute Lies We wanted the
lifestyle that you know this place
offered for us
you know a historic building a historic
Place uh we get just out of 12 acres
here just everything we could want and
we grew up in an agricultural area I
grew up in South Alabama and chickens
and pigs and you know all the normal
smells and sounds of growing up in the
agricultural area was taking me back
home
and then this place goes in and now it's
like living in like living next to a
cesspool you know I I keep calling I put
it on the chart the other day as a
cesspool because that's what it reminds
me of when uh when you got an open sewer
or an overflowed sewer or septic tank is
overflowed if you know what that smell
is like it is just absolutely nauseating
odor is one of the big problems that
neighbors have expressed with regard to
this material and when we look at the
data of the nutrient and the chemical
analysis what we see is that there are
constituents that could result in some
pretty objectionable odors in just about
every analysis so most of the batch all
of the batches as I said have high
levels of organic matter and high levels
of ammonia and the combining of those
two can lead to some pretty nasty smells
I've lived on Porter Mill Road since
1986 and a couple years ago the field
next to me was injected with the daf
it smells like something you have never
smelled it smells like something has
died it gave me a headache I couldn't
stay outside I had to go inside and it
probably took a good four or five days
before the smell actually went away
we're not rich people
and this is our home here
we never intended on leaving
and well
but we did intend
on leaving something to our children I'm
sorry Brooke
we did a 10 on leaving something to our
children
and at this stage of the game that's a
lost ball because who wants to live 400
yards from that tank it smells like a
sewer
the majority of time
this summer when I would want to carry
my six-year-old grandson who all he
wants to do is
run outside and play
and I couldn't let him go outside
especially when it was really potent
because he I don't know what kind of
toxins are in the air because of the
tank
and I can be laying in bed and before I
even get out of bed I can smell the tank
and so you know it's going to be a bad
day so you're gonna have to stay in the
house all day
I'm a part-time farmer I grow mostly
vegetables sell them at the local
farmers markets
I've used chicken manure and
I'm not I'm myself I'm not 100 against
spreading of sludge but I'm a hundred
percent against bringing it in from four
states and storing it 400 yards from my
front door
foreign
just take a look at where they're
bringing it from one place on Linkwood
Road you go by there it's thousands of
seagulls and thousands of buzzards there
every day
that's what's going to happen here
eventually
especially if they allow more tanks
we are very supportive of Agriculture we
appreciate it's the key role it plays in
the economy of Wicomico County and its
importance in the lives of its residents
the Wicomico environmental trust
believes that everybody
has a right to clean water clean air a
healthy environment in which they and
their kids can live
what rides do I have
you're infringing on my right now I
didn't ask for this tank to be put here
I only asked for this stench that's fair
for me
no it isn't this has nothing to do with
farming we were told and the county was
told that the entire disruption of the
land would be less than an acre and that
lifted any restrictions for constructing
this it's it's built as an agricultural
tank
the farmer did not have to go through
the process of storm water management or
any of the normal building permit
requirements that most businesses have
to go through
and indeed the total project was over an
acre to stay AG exempt it was supposed
to be under one acre
and the tank itself is three quarters of
an acre
you got the road running into it which
is 25 feet wide and
200 feet long you've got drive space all
the way around it so I think there's
well over an acre and a half Disturbed
not that that's a big amount but it's
all in non-total wetlands
I think the county was given false
information on the application
by the person that was applying
they were told that there was no
critical areas infringement or non-total
Wetlands infringement that was a lie
all right false information
they were told that it would be less
than an acre tore up that was false
information
they were told they wouldn't tear up any
Woodland that was false they were just
given false information so I think the
application was totally
given under false pretenses we in the
neighborhood are especially concerned
about not only the odors but the traffic
and the safety the condition and the
worsening conditions of the roads around
here is also the quality of life which
we've had to adjust certain things
because of the odors at times
and the the important thing to keep in
mind is if it could happen to us in
Wicomico County it could happen to
anybody who lives near agricultural land
in Wicomico County without any public
notice or without any notification
whatsoever
as it currently stands so there needs to
be some sort of guard rails and
restrictions on the construction of
these daf storage tanks
chemical analyzes that the neighborhood
Action Group obtained from several
plants that produce this material
have been we looked over those and we
discovered that basically there is a
huge amount of nitrogen phosphorus and
potassium which are the main nutrients
that cause problems in waterways and
most of the nitrogen is in the form of
organic nitrogen the rest of it is
almost exclusively ammonia
I've been in farming all my life I grew
up on our family farm I worked for a
farmer when I was in high school and
then every job that I've had since high
school has had some relation to
agriculture
the agriculture that we always did was
not like this this product is not like
chicken manure it's not like commercial
fertilizer this is an industrial
byproduct or Industrial Waste is being
applied to some of these fields
we're concerned about the the where the
tank is built the land is a high water
table area
the water when we have serious rainfall
and we've had a lot of that this year
but every year we usually see water
overrunning the road right here by the
tank and that water is running out of
the property around the tank bringing
with it anything that's spilled and it
makes its way a quarter of a mile back
to realistico Creek
if this tank were to have a major leak
or a rupture it's approximately 500
yards from Rustica Creek
with a ditch running rate of within 100
yards of the tank feeding directly into
the creek so it will take less than an
hour in a large rain for a spill to get
the rules to go Creek once it gets there
there's nothing you can do about it
also what it would do to our drinking
water around here I can I can I grew up
on 18 foot well in this area
my parents well was 18 feet we were
drinking out of so I'm sure there's
still plenty of wells in the area that
are the same thing what
what are you going to be drinking if we
have spills even small spills what are
you going to be drinking
what are we going to be drinking or our
grandkids going to be drinking if there
were a spill or a leak that material
could percolate down through the soil
into the below ground aquifer the
Columbia aquifer is the main water
source for Wicomico County Dorchester
County and Worcester County and it is
described by the Maryland Geological
Survey as being a very good water source
but also extremely vulnerable to
pollution
without any containment or or spill
control is is really asking for trouble
I think
some of the material comes from areas
which are more highly developed than our
region and that material is often
contaminated with another set of
chemicals called pahs pahs are
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and
they cause significant problems for
Aquatic Life
very small concentrations of these
chemicals are known to
cause declines in Crab populations for
example
they also happen to be very highly
carcinogenic and those chemicals are
known to cause human health problems
when they're found in air pollution so
what we have now is the potential for
serious
damage to our waterways through
groundwater and surface water flows
damage to our our important water
sources through flow into subsurface
aquifers and damage potentially through
Airborne particles so I think that's
leads us to conclude that you know this
is not a good place for storage of this
type of material
I just don't think our County wants to
become
the gut soup capital of the east coast
of the United States but that's what's
going to happen if they drop this
moratorium and allow any other tanks or
if we even keep this tank here because
we're bringing it now from four states
and we had a a petition that we raised
or we signed up over a hundred people I
personally did about 25 Homes at the
very top of Porter Mill Road and they
were victims of the spraying on the
fields right across the road from them I
didn't even have to get the words out of
my mouth why I wanted them to sign this
petition they welcomed me in and they
said give me the pen
as the size of these industrial
projects has grown to massive scale
