Sussex board denies request to rehear poultry plant case

By a 4-0 vote Jan. 28, Sussex County Board of Adjustment denied a request by citizens to reopen a hearing for Allen Harim Foods related to the Millsboro company's permit to haul wastewater to its Harbeson plant.

Keep Our Wells Clean had asked for the rehearing because of flaws in a board document prepared before Allen Harim received a permit from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to haul wastewater. Keep Our Wells Clean is also concerned with the long-term health of residents living near the deboning plant, and the group questions who is monitoring the plant.

In denying the group's request, board member Dale Calloway said the permitting process is under DNREC's purview, not the county's. “The board will defer to DNREC on wastewater permitting issues,” he said.

Calloway also said the board heard both sides of the issue in September when it unanimously voted to allow Allen Harim to continue with its deboning operation while obtaining permits for a spray-irrigation disposal system and also to haul wastewater to an off-site treatment facility.

The board did not put a deadline on the amount of time the company can haul wastewater before the spray-irrigation system is approved. Board attorney Jamie Sharp said there is no way to determine how long the permitting process would take.

Before making a motion to deny the request for a rehearing, Calloway said issues raised by Keep Our Wells Clean were already addressed by the board.

“Arguments are largely a rehash of arguments raised or should have been raised at the previous hearing. I am not convinced that [they] satisfied the condition for a rehearing,” Calloway said.

Keith Steck, member of Keep Our Wells Clean, said he was disappointed with the board's decision because their findings of fact are flawed.

“There are inaccuracies in the document and they should be corrected,” he said.

Specifically, Steck said, the board made a decision allowing Allen Harim to haul all its wastewater to an off-site facility, including septic waste. Although the board said it defers permitting to DNREC for wastewater disposal permits, Steck said the board's decision on all wastewater was made before the DNREC permit, which allows only process wastewater. He said the findings-of-fact document must be changed or else Allen Harim will be allowed to haul all its wastewater, based on the board's original decision.

“The board didn't make a fully informed decision. I don't think they should ignore the fact and make an erroneous decision,” Steck said.

Steck said he plans to address Sussex County Council at an upcoming meeting about the board's flawed document and decision allowing Allen Harim to operate.

Allen Harim plans to renovate 50,000 square feet of its 450,000-square-foot Millsboro facility on Pinnacle Way – the former Vlasic pickle plant – for deboning, packaging and shipping about 2 million pounds of chicken per week in a one-shift operation. Processed chicken for deboning would be trucked to the Millsboro facility from Allen Harim's Harbeson plant.