CAFO’s: Community groups ask county council for health ordinance

Local community groups are calling on the Wicomico County council to adopt a public health ordinance. The idea is to put a hold on the permit process and construction of new industrial Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFO’s until they do that.

Mary Ashanti, Wicomico County’s NAACP president says, “I would say this is critical I think they need to act with a sense of urgency.”

Local governments can use health ordinances to control or regulate the health impacts of large scale industrial CAFO’s. There are about nine pending applications with the Maryland Department of Environment to build them across Wicomico County. Some are asking for as little as one chicken house, the largest request right now is for eight.

Gabby Cammarata, one of the founders of Concerned Citizens Against Industrial CAFO’s says, “One of the biggest issues is not having enough evidence or research done in order to figure out what kind of things are coming out of the industrial scale CAFO’s.”

Those topics are scheduled to be addressed during a public town hall at Salisbury University next week. Cammarata says there were too many unanswered health questions left after a meeting with the state back in March.

Ernest Bond, a professor at Salisbury University who will be moderating the meeting says, “I live a half mile from a CAFO myself. During the past few years I’ve been suffering from cancer and finally in remission. Obviously if there’s any connection to health issues, I would like to know more about it.”

47 ABC spoke with the county council president about these requests. He says as of right now he hasn’t seen any substantial proof that poultry houses pose a threat to public health.

However, people like Cammarata think more testing is needed for that to happen. She goes on, “I believe that there is enough public backlash that we need to do these studies.”

The public town hall will be held at Salisbury University in Conway Hall at 5 p.m. on May 19th. The Wicomico County Council President says he does plan to attend.