Current status of our fight

PA ENVIRONMENTAL HEARING BOARD GRANTS ‘STAY’

McConnellsburg, PA, August 28, 2015. The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board has dealt a significant blow to plans to build a massive hog facility in Ayr Township, Fulton County, PA.

On Thursday, August 27, 2015, several local citizens won their fight to stay construction and operation of the proposed industrial hog operation in Ayr Township, Fulton County, PA.

Marjorie Hudson, Lorne Swope, David Lippert, and Delores Steiner had appealed a stormwater management permit issued to CFC Fulton Properties LLC for the proposed Bivouac hog facility. The facility is proposed for a hilly property surrounded by headwater streams, just upstream of Buchanan State Forest. The proposed facility would house approximately 8,722 hogs in a breeding and gestation facility. The project has been the subject of considerable public debate since early 2014, and is the subject of other pending appeals at the Environmental Hearing Board. To build the facility, the company proposes to cut approximately 30-40 feet off parts of the hillside, and fill in approximately the same amount in other areas in order to flatten the property to put the facility buildings, manure pits, and other related facilities on the property. The citizens raised concerns about inadequate stormwater management and damaging impacts to groundwater and local streams, among other issues.

Earlier this summer the citizens filed an appeal of the company’s stormwater management permit at the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board. Due to the imminency of construction on the property and the significant landscape destruction proposed, the citizens sought what is called a “supersedeas,” which is a stay of activity under a permit pending a determination by the Board on the citizens’ appeal. In their successful effort to obtain the stay, the citizens had to demonstrate their likelihood of success on the merits of their appeal and irreparable harm that would occur if the stay were not granted.

Said spokesperson Marjorie Hudson, “We are pleased that the Environmental Hearing Board has agreed to put the brakes on this project.”

The citizens have been represented by attorneys Jordan Yeager and Lauren Williams of the firm Curtin & Heefner LLP.

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