2634

BEFORE THE

STATE CONSERVATION COMMISSION

OF PA PUBLIC HEARING

* * * * * * * * *

IN RE: FACILITY ODOR MANAGEMENT

* * * * * * * * *

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.

* * * * * * * *

HEARING CONCLUDED AT•7:30 P.M.

* * * * * * * *

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

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• C0r.':EL3:rr\ PA.

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