(Editors Note: MOARK received approval Tuesday morning from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to go ahead with the addition of another 2.5 million chickens)By KAREN DILLON The Kansas City StarNEOSHO, Mo. - Moark, an egg-producing company with 2.6 million laying hens, has been in business for years without a state operating permit.For years it violated pollution laws, enraging many residents in the region. And when Missouri reached settlements with Moark to bring it into compliance, the company did not abide by them.Now Moark wants to add 2.5 million chickens to its flock - and Missouri is on the verge of saying yes.Opponents of the expansion said that the state had let Moark get by with scant punishment for too long and that there was no guarantee the new facilities would be any better than the old."They have not fined them enough money to make it worth it for them to behave in an environmentally respectable way," said Earl Hatley, an environmentalist who lives 30 miles from Neosho in Oklahoma. Communities in Oklahoma and Kansas have rejected bids by Moark to expand in those states.Doyle Childers, who was named director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources this year, said he understood the concerns of neighbors."As I look back at the history of it over the past several years, it doesn't look like to me that it has been a very satisfactory operation, both from the state's standpoint as well as from the company's," he said.Childers said the expansion should result in fewer problems, because new permits would require the company to meet certain restrictions on pollution.Dan Hudgens, Moark's director at the Neosho facility, said his company was acting responsibly."We have done everything required of us," Hudgens said. "I don't think we are polluting."Opponents said Moark was one of the region's worst polluters. Nearby residents complain loudly and often about foul odors. They say millions of tons of chicken manure have turned pristine streams and lakes cloudy.Each of the three Moark facilities in southwest Missouri has been found to have repeatedly violated state environmental laws. Inspectors listed two of the facilities as being out of compliance with laws at least 17 times each since the early 1990s.In 1997, the Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, and the attorney general's office reached settlement agreements with Moark showing the company had violated state clean water laws by applying chicken manure on land near streams, improperly discharging water from its production line and discharging stormwater into streams. A 2001 settlement listed some of the same violations, as well as some new ones.On a recent autumn day, nearly 20 persons, a core group of opponents, gathered in Richard Betz's garage about a mile from the Moark facilities in Newton County to discuss the expansion plans.About 25 miles south of Betz's home is Jane, Mo., where the company began. Since the 1950s, Hollis Osborne has expanded the egg production company from Missouri to Kansas and Colorado. Now Moark has hen houses across the country, and Moark eggs are commonly found in Kansas City groceries under such brands as Land O' Lakes and Eggland.The group, including May Belle Osborne, Hollis' sister who opposes the expansion, discussed the downside of Moark.They talked about chicken manure that collected on their vehicle tires and in their garages, flies so thick they clouded the view and made it impossible to sit on porches on summer evenings, and smells from the operations that have made people throw up.Early this year, Ervin Bussey, a farmer whose property abuts the Newton County facility, found a letter in his door. Moark was formally announcing its plans to expand in Missouri. "The next morning I started getting signatures on a petition," Bussey said.The Southwest Missouri Coalition Against Moark Expansion collected 3,500 signatures, but the petition has not had the desired effect on government officials. Many city and county officials have refused to publicly choose sides.Past problemsState inspection reports detail discharges of "nasty looking material," 32,000 fish killed because of manure in a stream, dead chickens hanging on barbed wire fences and manure splattered on trees, fence posts and leaves in areas surrounding the plants in Newton, Jasper and McDonald counties.But it is the Department of Natural Resources' enforcement that leaves people scratching their heads.In the 1997 settlement agreement, Moark promised to pay $50,000 in penalties and apply for an operating permit, which would establish limits for allowable pollutionA year later, Moark had not paid the fine, and when pushed by the attorney general, it offered $1,000. Eventually it paid $7,000.The company initially applied for an operating permit in 1998, but the state did not begin work on it until 2000, said Cindy Davies, the department's southwest regional director. The permit was sent back twice to be reworked and then put on hold until this year. Officials have issued a draft of the permit and said recently they planned to issue the official permit when they approve Moark's expansion.In 2001, the company reached another agreement with the state after more violations were discovered. Officials said none of the company's wastewater operators was certified. Moark had built a manure composting facility and another building without getting construction and operating permits. In addition, Moark had applied manure too close to streams. Moark paid $27,000 as part of the agreement.The department said efforts to bring the company into compliance had been slowed as the agency waited to learn the outcome of legal challenges to new laws on large confined animal operations.But the company has improved by cleaning up its facilities, they said. "In recent years, we have had very few significant issues with them," Davies said.Recent reports cite manure spills and the spreading of manure too close to streams.Davies said a permit for the expansion, which may be issued in a few weeks, would contain stricter requirements for all of Moark's Missouri operations."Will Moark comply with the permit and do what they need to?" she said. "The last few years indicates they are doing that. So we would assume that they are going to continue to do that."Childers noted, however, that odor problems would be more difficult to solve.Hudgens of Moark said the new permits would contain specific regulations making Moark less likely to pollute. "DNR has a very good set of rules," he said.Moark officials said opponents' accusations were unfair and argued that they had been a good neighbor. They said their regulatory record and facilities had improved greatly in the past three years."I think anyone who explores the record will find our record is reasonably good," Hudgens said. "In fact, for a number of years it's a very, very good record."Others say noThe Department of Natural Resources raised eyebrows in Oklahoma when that state's environmental secretary learned that Missouri had issued a draft of Moark's permit without notifying his agency, as required by federal law.Miles Tolbert, the Oklahoma secretary, said in a letter to the department that the 5 million laying hens and pullets were the equivalent of a population of 500,000 people. He noted that the facilities would be located on tributaries to the Spring and Elk rivers, both of which flow into Oklahoma."According to Missouri Department of Natural Resources records, Moark has consistently violated" state regulations, Tolbert wrote. "What assurances are there that the proposed permits will not just be a continuation of past problems?"Last August, Moark announced that it planned to expand in Welch, Okla., about 35 miles west of Neosho. The Welch Area Residents For Responsible Land Development got 300 signatures on a petition opposing Moark.Hatley, who monitors streams and the Grand Lake O' the Cherokees for pollution, is not impressed by Moark's record."They are sitting there on the Missouri line dumping into Oklahoma, and Grand Lake becomes the Ty-D-Bol for southwest Missouri," Hatley said.By September, Moark officials backed away from the Oklahoma site because the property owners' health was being harmed by pressure from relatives and friends, Hudgens said.In December, residents of Cherokee County, Kan., learned that Moark wanted to build there.By mid-January, residents, the Baxter Springs City Council, the Galena City Commission and the Riverton school board all had taken positions against Moark. The Cherokee County Health Department said the facility would pollute the nearby Spring River.Moark again backed off its plans.Hudgens said Moark was continuing to look at other communities in Oklahoma and Kansas, some of which he said wanted Moark's business.
(Article printed with permission of The Kansas City Star).
