Tighter rules for pig farms sought

Neighbors propose law to reduce odor

Complaints about piggeries have grown as once-rural areas have been developed into bedroom communities. (Mark Wilson/Globe Staff/File 2001)

Neighbors unhappy with what they call a persistent stench from a Tewksbury piggery are leading an effort to put new restrictions on pig farms via a home-rule petition to the Legislature.

"Our neighborhood smells horrible," said Krochmal Farm neighbor David S. Powers, who manages a website and leads a protest group, both called TewksburyOdor.org. "We are not looking to shut down anything. We want them to stay. We just don't want our summers ruined like this."

TewksburyOdor.org activists have collected some 360 local signatures, qualifying them to put a measure tightening requirements for piggery operations on the warrant for the Special Town Meeting on Oct. 7, said Tewksbury Town Clerk Mary-Ann O'Brien Nichols. If Town Meeting approves, the measure will go before the Legislature as a home-rule petition that would affect only Tewksbury piggeries. The town has two others besides Krochmal Farm.

Success on Beacon Hill would mean that Tewksbury would have a local law that supersedes federal and state protections for agricultural operations, exempting them from many environmental and public health standards.

"If the townspeople vote in favor of it, I'm duty bound to put it through the Legislature and get the governor to sign it," said state Representative James R. Miceli, a Democrat who represents parts of Tewksbury and Wilmington.

The owners of Krochmal Farm, off South Street, did not return calls for comment.

Their lawyer, Francis A. Di Luna, said he believes that such a law would be overturned because it would conflict with agricultural protections. "I think it exceeds the town's authority," said Di Luna. "Towns cannot unreasonably regulate the use of agricultural lands."

That the dispute between neighbors and the piggery has risen to this level highlights the clash of interests when a once-rural area develops into a bedroom community and farm odors invade the backyard barbecue. The home rule would create new standards protecting homeowners' health and well-being, empowering the local health agent to regulate nuisance odor, and requiring enforcement of environmental laws related to keeping swine.

Miceli said he believes the bill would have a good chance at passage, since lawmakers generally respect the wishes of colleagues' home-rule petitions. He got involved because, he said, Krochmal Farm failed to heed regulations.

"We live in a world today where you can't just thumb your nose anymore," he said.

Powers said Krochmal Farm, which raises pigs for slaughter elsewhere, has not abided by environmental and public health standards. He says the runoff from manure spread in the fields pollutes the Shawsheen River and local streams, might be leaching into ground water, and could cause health problems.

"Right now, I have particles of fecal matter going into my nose," Powers said during a telephone interview from his backyard last week. "I really do think it's bad for you."

Still, state environmental and public health agencies say they have no record that the piggery has violated regulations.

Joe Ferson, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection, said his agency conducts regular inspections of Krochmal Farm - even as recently as earlier this month - "to ensure the proper [environmental and water runoff] management practices are being maintained."

However, Tewksbury health director Lou-Ann Clement said Krochmal Farm did fail to comply with the municipal building code. About four years ago, she said, the owners built a new pig barn without first obtaining a permit.

Di Luna said Krochmal Farm has the necessary permits from federal, state, and local agencies, and would not have gotten them if there were ongoing violations. He said the owners received the local building permit retroactively. "Because of the noise the neighbors and townsfolk have made, this farm has really been under a microscope," he added.

Di Luna said protections for agricultural operations at both the federal and state levels have been strengthened over the years specifically to guard against urban sprawl encroaching on farmland, and courts repeatedly have upheld the right to farm.

He said the site of Krochmal Farm has been used for more than a century as a piggery, and the current owners took it over in the 1940s, long before a residential building boom. He said he could not reveal the numbers of pigs raised there now, because such data are kept confidential under US Homeland Security laws.

In 2005, Di Luna conceded, the farm changed some of its manure-management practices, which did cause the odor that led to complaints. But he said the farmers handle manure differently now, reducing the problem.

"The word I get is that there have been no foul odor outbreaks this summer," he said. "I don't know what the neighbors are smelling. I've been on the site. It smells like a farm."

But Selectman David H. Gay said he smells it from his house, about a quarter-mile away and, if the wind is right, when he drives home from work on Interstate 93.

Gay is setting up a community meeting for next month to be held at the L.D. Trahan School, to talk about the proposed restrictions.

Connie Paige can be reached at connie_paige@yahoo.com.