This is a letter from someone who has had the misfortune of living near industrial chicken houses…

Good day, let me add to the Barefoot Farmer’s fight. I have a home in
Clay county located in a Lake View Estates subdivision of 20 plus
homes & more being built. Back in ’07 Cagle & Keystone built a CAFO
with 6 buildings that house 150000 birds. We tried to fight it with
over 120 plus names on a petition and complaints with concerns to the
local Govt. & other Govt. agencies but w/ no luck. Our neighborhood
is now air polluted by the most nasty smell you can possibly stand. I
have sent letters to the EPA, TDEC, the governors, Sen. Mae Beavers, &
the state reps. of course they just pass the buck with little or no
response. There are no laws to protect us only guidelines for the
CAFO’s to follow.

At night and even in the day this nasty smell will make your blood
boil with anger. Trying to cook out or other out door activities is
not much fun when it stinks. There are people in out neighborhood
that do not have AC so they have to tolerate the smell or close their
windows during the summer. So much for letting the fresh air in and
saving money on electricity. You can even smell it on Dale Hollow
Lake which is good for the tourist to enjoy. I don’t understand why
they put them in so close to our homes especially in a named
subdivision. I along with my neighbors have been fighting this for
years and with out taking it to court we are forced to deal with it.
Not only does it stink but the semi trucks on a 1 lane winding country
road will do a lot of damage to the road & is an accident waiting to
happen.

They call this farming? it’s more a animal manufacturing operation.
My main complaint is there should be odor nuisance laws to protect us
from these operations and still allow them to operate w/o affecting
us. The smell is caused by chicken litter as it ferments it releases
Ammonia & other gases that are odoriferous. This can’t be good for us to
breathe or organic farming, plants breathe too.

The CAFO owners will offer the locals chickens to try to make friends
it works for awhile then everyone gets tired of it. They will try to
be nice but in the end it really is a bad situation for everyone that
is forced to deal with the smell and the trucks making deliveries late
@ night. Once again corporations are taking advantage of those who
cannot afford to fight them. They locate these cafos where everyone
is poor and do not have the resources to stop them. I would like to
invite you to come and see for yourself how awful it can be. TN. is a
right to farm state, what about my rights? I should have the right to
breathe clean air. I should have the right to a nice neighborhood.

The Barefoot Farmer is in for a fight. I hope he wins, if he does
luck is on his side.