Pigs call attention to cows

Stench foes report unauthorized herd

For the owners of Krochmal Farm, it was the pigs that gave away the cows.

A stench allegedly wafting from the farm's Tewksbury piggery had stoked residents' wrath in several towns in this area, including Wilmington and Andover.

Now the farm is facing new scrutiny in Wilmington, where residents recently reported that Krochmal owners have been keeping more than 100 cattle and have erected a cowshed on a Wilmington portion of the farm - all without a permit, said local public health director Gregory Erickson.

"The cows are already there, and have been there for quite some time without a permit," Erickson said last week, before the Board of Health held a public hearing to consider granting the permit for the livestock. "Until now, it's the only farm in town that I know of that's been out of sight, out of mind, but the farm has been subject to a lot of scrutiny by residents, and so the question of the cows came up."

At the hearing Tuesday, Krochmal owner John Cave Sr. made a brief plea for the paperwork that would allow him to keep his estimated 150 cattle on the parcel (disclosure of the exact count of livestock is restricted by Homeland Security regulations, according to Erickson). That prompted a lengthy and at times heated comment session involving a number of the approximately 30 people at the hearing.

"Lack of displays, lack of information, lack of presentation," Salem Street resident James T. Murray complained about Cave's request. "We have rights, too, and they have been stomped on."

Resident Gregory B. Miller, of Woburn Street, was among those who supported Cave, saying the farmer should have a chance to conform to the law now.

"Just because the government decides that one day they need a permit, whether the cows have been there 50 years or five years, [Cave is] now doing the right thing," Miller said after the hearing.

Many at the hearing wanted to discuss not the cattle but the swine on the farm's Tewksbury property.

However hard she tried - at times threatening to have odor-angry neighbors escorted from the building when they would not focus on the cows - Board of Health chairwoman Elizabeth Sabounjian could not keep the topic of the pigs out of the middle school auditorium.

Town Manager Michael A. Caira said one could not discuss the cows without addressing the pigs.

"The odor issue must be resolved," he said. "The odor creates a problem all the way to Town Hall. In some instances, public health may be in jeopardy. You have to solve that problem before we can look legitimately at whether or not this permit can be approved."

It has been an uneasy few years down on Krochmal Farm.

Following a family dispute played out in public over who would inherit the land after matriarch Ann Krochmal's death in 2001, the farm in recent months faced increasingly vociferous objections to the miasma neighbors say originates from the more than 900 swine the Caves and two other families raise there.

On Sept. 22, as Tewksbury resident David S. Powers continued sounding the anti-odor charge from his website, Tewksburyodor.org, Wilmington residents added their complaints to the mix at a Wilmington Board of Selectmen meeting.

Area legislators have also jumped on the bandwagon. State Senator Susan C. Tucker, an Andover Democrat, gave her support to a residents' petition for stricter Tewksbury piggery rules - including manure management and possible permit revocation for violations.

Tewksbury voters were scheduled to decide on the measure, which the Legislature would have to approve if it passes, on Oct. 2.

State Representative James R. Miceli, Democrat of Wilmington, said he, too, has listened to his constituents' complaints and is opposed to the scope of the farm's livestock business.

"This farm does not belong there," Miceli said. "It belongs in the middle of Idaho. It's become overwhelming."

At the hearing Tuesday, Cave acknowledged that the odor had become a problem but that he had brought in outside help to remedy the situation.

"I'm sorry if it has smelled," he said. "We don't want it to smell. That's our goal."

As for the cattle on his Wilmington property, he said the permit requirement was "new information."

"There have always been animals down there," he said after the hearing.

Sabounjian said the Board of Health will take residents' written comments on the livestock permit - by mail, e-mail, or drop-off - until tomorrow.

The Board of Health's decision on the permit application, she said, will be made in the following weeks.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in the Globe's Northwest section Sunday about complaints against a farm in Wilmington and Tewksbury gave the wrong date for a special Town Meeting vote to implement stricter pig farm rules in Tewksbury. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. today at Tewksbury Memorial High School.