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PAGE 6A — THE MADISON COUNTY (GA) JOURNAL. THURSDAY. DECEMBER 24, 2020 Lawsuit .cont’d from 1A This photo was included in a Department of Agriculture report from a January 2020 inspection of Smith Farn property in Rayle. Food, Victory Foods, Pilgrims Pride. Leon Jones Feed and Grain and Benson's Inc. The plaintiffs allege that the disposal was done in “in violation of a number of laws and regulations, includ ing but not limited to. the Georgia Liming Materials Act of 1996 and the Dead Animal Disposal Act.” They allege that there were “consistent foul and noxious odors and abnormal swarms of flies and other invasive insects.” Plaintiffs say they have experienced irritation of their eyes, nose, skin and throat as well as difficulties breathing due to the odor. They said their wells were contaminated with arsenic from the practice and ren dered unusable. One plaintiff alleged that he “suffered a serious infection after com ing into contact with water running off from the disposal operation.” The plaintiffs contend that the Smiths are bene- fitting financially by giving businesses a place to dump waste at a cheaper rate than they can at a landfill, while spreading materials that “contained ingredients that would shock the conscience of local neighbors, including but not limited to tampons, toilet paper, and poultry car casses and body parts.” “For example, an inspec tion by state inspectors documents, ‘there appeared to be feet, heads and other body parts of very young chickens incorporated with the shells and feathers' and that the pink colored objects appeared to be chicken car casses, which appeared to comprise most of the load.” wrote Kyle Califf, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. THE RESPONSE TO ALLEGATIONS Bob Mowrey, attorney for Jeff Smith, responded to questions from The Journal related to the suit. “This is a legitimate agri cultural practice.” he wrote. “These materials have valu able organic content, provide important nutrient values to soil, and support crop pro duction. That crop produc tion is in turn vital to produc ing feed for the cattle.” Mowrey noted that Smith Farms’ dairy farm operations date back approximately 30 years. Smith Farms main tains roughly 2,500 head of cattle in Madison County and Wilkes County, includ ing both dairy cattle and beef cattle. “Smith Farms also grows crops on properties located in Madison County, Wilkes County and Oglethorpe County to provide high-qual ity feed for these cattle,” he wrote. “These properties total roughly 3,400 acres.” The attorney pointed out that none of the allegations in the suit come from within Madison County and that all plaintiffs in the case are at least 20 miles from Smith Farms’ Madison County operations. “Smith Farms has been supplied only materials that, according to the sup pliers. have been registered with or licensed by the State of Georgia Department of Agriculture,” wrote Mowrey. “It has always been true that many agricultural operations in rural communities involve some amount of smell. In fact, the Georgia General Assembly has expressly rec ognized that fact because it enacted into Georgia law a ‘right to farm' law designed to protect farmers against claims in certain situations. Although the lawsuit is in its early stages, that law may bar some or all of the claims in this case.” Mowrey said the lawsuit makes allegations about the relative costs to Smith Farms' suppliers of pro viding these materials to Smith Farms as compared to the cost if disposal were required. “Smith Farms does not have insight into its suppli ers' cost structures and refers any questions on that issue to those suppliers,” he wrote. “However, it is Smith Farms’ understanding that the ben eficial reuse of the types of materials that Smith Farms obtains from its suppliers is very common in Georgia and elsewhere.” He said Georgia law encourages recycling and this practice is a form of that. “The fact that the Department of Agriculture regulates the agricultural use of these materials through licensing and registration indicates this is a com mon, accepted practice and that the plaintiffs' effort to characterize the practice as improper is misplaced,” the attorney wrote. Mowrey said the plaintiffs’ allegation that water wells were contaminated by arse nic from the Smiths Farms operations is not supported by fact. “By law, Smith Farms tests groundwater at its Wilkes County property periodi cally, and the results have not shown a problem, much less is there any information available to Smith Farms to support the claim that there are any impacts from its operations that have migrat ed off-site to any plaintiff property,” wrote Mowrey. “In fact, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division requested a round of sampling at Smith Farms’ property — apparently because of unfounded com plaints from one or more of the plaintiffs — and those results confirmed again there is not a problem, including showing that arsenic, a nat urally occurring substance, was undetectable in that sampling.” Mowrey said the allega tions in the suit arise from photography of chicken parts. He said Smith Farms “did receive a one-time delivery of off-spec materials from a supplier of eggshells that included some apparent ly very young chicken parts.” But he said the matter has been resolved. “This incident was report ed to be the result of a machinery malfunction at the supplier facility,” wrote Mowrey. “Those materials were never spread. Instead, Smith Farms worked with the appropriate regulators to ensure they were disposed of properly. Since then, the rel evant supplier has continued to supply eggshells without further incident.” DEPARTMENT OF AG REPORT A report from a Jan. 3,2020 inspection by Jennifer Wren of the Georgia Department of Agriculture included pho tographs of the Smith prop erty on Centerville Road in Rayle. Wren was there with two representatives from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. She wrote that “piles of whitish material near the storage pond were visible from the road.” “A strong odor seemed to emanate from the piles of whitish material, and red liq uid pooled around the edges of the material.” wrote Wren. “Shortly after our arrival, a tanker truck (labeled as Leon Jones Feed & Grain, Inc.) delivered a load to the site.” Wren said Smith told her the material she observed at the property was a “reg istered lime product from IsoNova, although he could not provide any kind of label or documentation.” “I verified that IsoNova Technologies LLC (for merly known as American Dehydrated Foods, Inc.) does hold a current lime license with the Department (license # 36) with one registered product: A.D.F. Egg Shells,” wrote Wren. “Upon closer inspection of the material, there appeared to be feet, heads, and other body parts of very young chickens incorporated with the shells and feathers.” About an hour later, a sec ond load was delivered to the site by Leon Jones Feed & Grain. Inc.. Trucking. “The material delivered in this load was noticeably pinker in color than the other piles of eggshell mixture,” she wrote. “A closer view shows the ‘pink' colored objects to be chicken carcasses, which appeared to comprise most of the load,” wrote Wren. “Mr. Smith explained that he plans to spread this material on the surrounding fields as a liming agent and then plow it in, but he has had to wait on clear weather to do so.” She wrote that Smith told her he “receives this material approximately five days a week, with around two to three loads on each of those five days.” Wren wrote that “the composition of the loads is highly variable, with some piles appearing uniform and finely ground, while other mixtures were more hetero geneous.” Wren and a fellow Department of Ag inspector returned to the Smith prop erty on Jan. 7 “to determine if the eggshell material had been incorporated into the soil over the weekend” and found “no apparent chang es to the stored material, although flocks of carrion birds could be seen feed ing on the piles.” Smith was told “he must dispose of the carcasses in one of the per mitted ways by Wednesday, January 15, 2020.” Wren visited IsoNova’s Dahlonega site and met with plant manager Daniel Rice, who said the site is a “liq uid effluent retention facil ity (LERF) that “receives hatchery waste/offal from 28 Georgia hatcheries.” “This waste includes eggs and euthanized chicks that have been macerated at the hatchery before delivery to the LERF,” wrote Wren. “Once the waste material is received in Dahlonega, solids are separated from liquid through a process of screening and centrifug ing, which we were able to observe during our visit. The liquid that results is taken to IsoNova’s facility in Social Circle, where it is dried and powdered as an animal feed ingredient. The leftover solids are delivered to Jeff Smith’s property in Rayle to be land-applied. The Smith property is the only farm receiving this material, according to Mr. Rice. He stated that approximately 15 buck loads of the material are delivered to Mr. Smith every week.” Rice told Wren that hatch eries compensate IsoNova for taking their offal. “IsoNova uses a portion of that waste for animal feed production, but must dispose of the remaining, unusable solids,” wrote Wren. “They then pay property owners such as Mr. Smith to accept this material and land-apply it.” FARMING OR WASTE DISPOSAL? A point of dispute is the nature of the practice itself. Is it agriculture or not? The defendants say, yes, abso lutely. The plaintiffs argue it's not about farming, but disposal. ‘This waste disposal oper ation. euphemistically called ‘land application,’ has been used merely as a way for all defendants to dispose of these otherwise hazard ous. noxious, foul, pollut ing. pathogenic and odorous wastes,” wrote the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the complaint filed in August. Plaintiff's attorney Chris Nidel said he thinks the spreading practice is terrible and fits into a bigger pat tern of companies exploiting rural areas. “What’s going on is dis gusting.” said Nidel. “To me, what’s interesting is this kind of thing takes various forms around the country. It’s going on in rural areas. Companies need to get rid of waste and they’re using farmland to do that. Farmers are getting paid money to dump waste and pretend they're farming. It's sad to see farmland used as dumping grounds for indus try. It has an effect on the environment and the people living around that land.” Beck said the “physical photosynthesis of this is sup posed to break down the tox icity, and that's how they got it filed as a soil amendment.” “And that's what they call it, but the Smiths were not integrating it into the soil: they were just dumping layer upon layer, and this stuff was just sitting on top of the ground and in some cases the sun would dry it out,” he said. “And in many cases, the heavy rains would wash this into the waterways and into the creeks. So that became a problem.” Blanton said it’s wrong to call this “agriculture.” “They were just a dispos al site,” she said. “This had nothing to do with agricul ture.” Beck said the term “soil amendment” is “supposed to add value to the soil, but the only value that’s added is to a bottom line, a private equi ty firm’s bottom line.” “It’s become a big game of disposal whack-a-mole, where you find an area that will receive it, you dump as much as you can until the stink gets bad, and I don’t mean just the smell, until things get hairy,” he said. “You face the oncoming noise and then you move to another area. And you just keep moving until you run out of rural areas. And then maybe you circle back to those.” Jeff Smith, through his attorney, said claims that the practices are harmful aren't based in fact. “Smith Dairy Farms takes great pride in farming our lands,” he said. “We would never spread products on our property that we thought would be harmful to our land, to our animals, or to our neighbors. We think the lawsuit is meritless. We will defend ourselves vigorously and expect to prevail.” Jlap all tlje blessings; of tl)t sfeasfon be pours;. Al and Anne Stone, Dottie Coile, nsi, Nicholas, Reid and Rydge Dudley Big thanks to all of the kind folks who have made our year so special. We're very grateful for friends and neighbors like you. As we welcome the holiday season, we hope it finds you surrounded by abundant happiness and good fortune. Best wishes! HYMAN BROWN INSURANCE AGENCY, INC. P. O. Box 479 * 11 State Street • Commerce, GA 30529 Office: 706-335-3900 • Toll Free: 1-888-264-5069 Fax: 706-336-6782