Source:  Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 4/25/11

Plans to rezone 150 acres of land as an incentive to bring a 180,000-square-foot poultry processing facility in North Carolina continue to be stalled as local residents raise the stakes over water-quality issues
In November more than 30 residents of Nash and Wilson counties, along with the city of Wilson, sued neighboring Nash County over its decision to rezone industrial land as part of an incentive to Sanderson Farms to build its second North Carolina facility.

They claim that the decision violates a Consent Decree issued in 2001 that requires the county to protect long-term water supplies and provides the county with water during times of drought from a local reservoir. The terms remain in effect until 2025.

The lawsuit raises concerns about the environmental effects of the plant, which residents say would release nitrogen and phosphorus, heavy metals used in chicken feed additives and trace antibiotics into local watersheds. The plant could bring approximately 1,100 jobs to the area.

Now Attorney I. Clark Wright is threatening to seek an injunction and is asking Nash County to cease and desist from rezoning the land. He claims that the county’s draft environmental impact statement does not adequately address concerns about the project’s affect on water quality.

“We are totally committed to a second North Carolina site, but we put this on hold in February pending the resolution of the 2011 corn crop,” Mike Cockrell, treasurer and CFO of Sanderson Farms, told Meatingplace. Although he declined to say how many other sites the company is considering, he did identify one in Goldsboro, N.C., but declined to provide a date by which the company hopes to decide.

The other North Carolina plant opened in Kinston in January 2011. The second facility will be dedicated to the big bird deboning market, Cockrell said.

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