MOUNTVILLE, S.C. — Through a tangle of trees separating his land from a neighbor’s, Charles Blackmon stared glumly at the cluster of chicken barns where mountains of putrid waste are generated every year.
It’s a scene he’s gotten used to, but not one he’s happy about.
On summer days, the smell of chickens and manure often drifts across his community from the farm near his property, Blackmon says. When it rains, water seeps into the earth, threatening to send bacteria into groundwater in an area where people drink from wells.
Most of all, Blackmon worries about chicken farm pollution hurting a river where he learned to swim, fish and trap turtles as a boy.
Blackmon, 76, has been fighting for nine years to stop the growth of the poultry industry in this corner of Laurens County, a rural area where industrial scale chicken farms have settled.
A one-time state constable and National Guardsman, Blackmon founded a community group that has become the face of opposition to massive chicken farms in South Carolina.
He has been to the Legislature, speaking against poultry friendly legislation that would take away protections for the public. He’s gone to court, challenging state decisions to allow more chicken farms and pollution from farms. And he’ll tell anyone about the potential for concentrations of large poultry barns to disrupt communities.
“This is big, corporate chicken farms,’’ Blackmon said. “This product is marketed all over the world. And we’re left with the pollution.’’
In addition to environmental concerns, there are worries about how chicken farms will affect neighboring property values in the Mountville area, where many of the farms are located. One recent Duke University study said living near a poultry farm in North Carolina can reduce a home’s value by up to 30%.
These days, Blackmon’s community group is challenging in a state court permits that regulators issued for two large farms designed to hold more than a half million chickens in 16 barns. Chickens would be kept in houses 600 feet long and produce 3,220 tons of manure annually, according to the S.C. Environmental Law Project, a non-profit legal group representing Blackmon’s community organization.
That threatens the surrounding environment and the Little River, which flows toward the Saluda River and Lake Murray west of Columbia, the legal group says.
“Treasures like the Little River and its tributaries …. are extremely susceptible to irreversible harm should these permits stand,’’ the law project said in a news release last summer. “The threat to the Little River is all the more serious considering that this water body is already overburdened with fecal coliform bacteria.’’
If the 16 chicken houses open as planned, that would bring to 73 the number of poultry barns located on 9,700 acres in and around Mountville, Blackmon and his lawyers say. Included in the area is a Presbyterian church where funerals and Sunday services have had to deal with the stench from chicken farms, Blackmon said.
Those who support chicken farms say local growers are committed to following environmental rules. They say poultry is being unfairly portrayed in a state that depends on chickens and turkeys for food and to boost the economy.
One farmer, who attended a public meeting last spring about the proposed new chicken barns, called opponents hypocrites for challenging such an important industry.
“You’re cutting your own throat complaining about them,’’ poultry farmer Debo Jacks said at the time.
Statewide rhubarb
Modern day poultry farming, like that being done around Mountville, isn’t the type of agrarian lifestyle people might think about.
Instead of a relatively few chickens running around in a fence, industrial scale poultry farms house tens of thousands of birds in a single barn. And often there are multiple barns, many as long as two football fields. It’s an efficient system that produces quality chicken for the table, but one with environmental issues.
So the dispute in Laurens County isn’t unique in South Carolina, one of the nation’s top chicken-producing states. Palmetto State chicken farmers produce more than 230 million birds for meat each year, putting South Carolina among the top 12 in the nation and making broiler chickens a major economic player.
That holds great sway in the state Legislature, where poultry farming, and agriculture in general, often benefit from changes in the law that give deference to farmers.
But chicken farms smell bad and runoff from those farms has contaminated streams with bacteria that sometimes makes it risky to swim in rivers. Dead chickens that don’t survive in poultry houses also can cause unpleasant smells that draw concerns. In August, the Edisto Riverkeeper discovered a mass of chicken carcasses floating in the river’s north fork.
It’s not unusual for people to complain about the stench of a chicken or turkey farm down the road from their homes. In some counties, chicken farms are so densely situated that neighbors say they can’t enjoy backyard cookouts because of the odor.
State regulators say they have received 66 complaints about uncovered piles of chicken manure in 21 different counties since 2019. Statewide, South Carolina has hundreds of poultry farms. The Department of Environmental Services says it has issued more than 500 permits for chicken and turkey farms across South Carolina. The state’s top 25 poultry producing counties have nearly 390 broiler chicken farms, federal Agriculture Department data show.
Statistics show that the number of broiler chickens found on farms at any one time increased in South Carolina from about 32.3 million in 2002 to 54 million in 2022. But that is a one-time snapshot of chickens accounted for on a particular date.
Most farmers produce multiple flocks each year, sometimes as many as six. So the number of broiler chickens produced in South Carolina annually is closer to 235 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Broiler chickens are those raised for meat.
Laurens, a county of about 68,000 residents between Greenville and Columbia, ranks among the leading counties for poultry production in the state – and chicken farming is becoming more a part of the landscape.
In 2002, the county had a livestock inventory of 436,000 chickens. That’s the amount counted at any one time. Twenty years later, the county had about three times that amount, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Overall, the county produced about 6.9 million chickens for food in 2022, ranking Laurens 10th among the state’s 46 counties, agriculture data show.
(The top broiler chicken counties in the state are Lexington and Saluda, which each produce more than 30 million birds annually.)
In the Mountville area of Laurens County, 57 chicken houses surround the land where Blackmon grew up, the result of an explosion of poultry farming, he and members of his community group say. Adding 16 more barns, as planned by farmers, would further degrade the environment, critics say.
The Little River, the stream Blackmon cares so much about, has registered bacteria levels high enough to prompt a state cleanup plan. Runoff from farms is one of the main suspected causes of the water contamination, state documents show. The Little River empties into the Saluda River, which in turn flows into Lake Murray west of Columbia.
Mountville is a community in southern Laurens County just southwest of Clinton and not far from the Newberry County line and Interstate 26. It’s about 55 miles northwest of Columbia.
‘War Between the States’
Blackmon and group members say they realize poultry is big business and they aren’t opposed to all chicken farming. In fact, many say they are boosters of the industry, having grown up in an agricultural community where people they have known for years run big chicken farms..
But Blackmon, whose family has owned land in the area since 1767, says tougher controls are needed. He says the state should impose density requirements on poultry farms. That way, the industry won’t be shut down, but neighbors would be less affected by clusters of chicken and turkey farms, he says. He also says the state’s environmental department needs to be more aggressive in enforcing existing laws.
People across South Carolina should take heed of what’s happened in Laurens County, he said.
“I can’t believe we so absolutely ignore our natural resources,’’ Blackmon said.. “I mean, how can they do this?’’
Unfortunately, he said, the opposition to chicken farms near Mountville has split the community “almost like the War Between the States being refought over poultry.’’
A high energy retiree with a warm smile, Blackmon lives in Clinton with his wife. But he formerly lived in the Mountville area, where he has extensive landholdings near chicken farms. He says he has a special kinship to the property his ancestors settled on centuries ago.
On his acreage, Blackmon has a workshop that he’s using to restore a vintage automobile. Woodlands and wetlands on the land attract plenty of wildlife, including deer and songbirds. The Little River runs through the property.
One of his two sons lives in a family home that’s within a few hundred yards of a chicken farm. The home is sometimes saturated with strong odors from the poultry farm, the family says. Odors have been tied to the barns and from spreading manure on land nearby.
Blackmon got involved in the chicken fight after his neighbors came to him, concerned about talk they had heard of big poultry farms moving in. He started asking questions and eventually formed an organization called SCRAP, short for South Carolinians for Responsible Agricultural Practices.
A 1970 Presbyterian College graduate, Blackmon – known to friends as “Scooty’’ – is an avid outdoorsman who grew up in Clinton, where he attended local schools. After college, he worked full time with his father as a bridge and highway construction contractor, while also working as a deputy state wildlife officer before he retired.
He spends many of his days on the chicken farm issue, but also works on other community projects, such as helping handicapped hunters.
Former state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, a Democrat from Charleston who has been critical of the poultry industry, said people have legitimate complaints about the concentration of animal farms in South Carolina. He credits Blackmon with keeping the issue in the public eye.
“I believe him to wear a white hat,’’ said Kimpson, who fought loosening chicken farm rules while he was in the Legislature.. “He’s one of the good guys on the side of protecting the small people.’’
Swarming flies
On a recent fall day, Blackmon drove through the Mountville community, eyeballing the different poultry farms that have located there in the past 20 years.
After pointing out numerous farms to journalists from The State, he stopped his truck along a dirt road on land he owns, jumped out of the cab and walked over to a veneer of hardwoods on the road’s grassy shoulder.
The existing chicken farm he worries about near his property was easy to spot through the trees.
Up a small hill lay several long, flat roofed barns.
Below them, were piles of material Blackmon said can only be chicken manure. The piles were not covered with tarps, nor did they appear to be sitting on pads – both requirements the state imposes to prevent manure from spilling across the land and polluting groundwater and creeks.
Drone footage The State took in September showed more than a dozen mounds of a dark material below those barns.
Blackmon said people have told the state’s environmental department about the piles, but nothing has come of it.
“I have observed mounds of exposed fecal material from new poultry barns, which are allowed to sit for months uncovered,’’ Blackmon said in an affidavit filed recently with the S.C. Administrative Law Court.
In response to questions from The State newspaper, the Department of Environmental Services said it did not have any complaints about the piled up material at the chicken farm Blackmon was referring to. But a spokeswoman said the agency would look into the matter.
The farm the DES said it would look into is already established and is not connected to the plan others have for new chicken houses on Lisbon Road.
Still, concerns about the existing farm may be an indicator of what would happen if the new farms open, Blackmon and his attorney, Emily Poole, said. They said the state Department of Environmental Services does not oversee chicken farms strictly enough.
During his September drive around Mountville, Blackmon parked at a spot near the Little River, and trudged through a patch of woods and underbrush toward the stream bank. Tall trees, late summer flowers and berry bushes were abundant along the edge of the dark river.
It’s a peaceful place that Blackmon owns, but he said poultry barns threaten the river and its banks. His neighbors have similar concerns about problems near their homes.
Richard and Chris Heald, who are SCRAP members, suspect the profusion of flies around their house results from a big chicken farm several hundred yards away. The flies have infiltrated the couple’s home at times. One day, Richard Heald said he walked out to his truck to find flies covering the vehicle. The problem is so bad they spend hundreds of dollars each year buying fly traps.
“One year, it got so infested with flies around here that they were finding their way in through the cracks in the windows,’’ Chris Heald said during a break from lunch two months ago at Blackmon’s home. “I mean, we had so many flies in our house sometimes. I’m disgusted.’’
They’re afraid farm odors and flies could devalue their home, which the retired couple purchased several years ago..
“My husband and I feel stuck,’’ Chris Heald said in an affidavit filed with the state Administrative Law Court. “We sunk our savings into this property, and now, we don’t believe we could even sell it.’’
Poultry’s defenders
Efforts to reach the farmers seeking to build chicken barns, Jim Young and Heath Coggins, were unsuccessful. Nor was The State able to reach an attorney representing them in their legal fight to establish the 16 chicken barns.
But while conceding that chicken houses produce odors, some farmers defend poultry as an important service.
During last spring’s public meeting to discuss the Young and Coggins plans, poultry barn opponents got an earful from Jacks, the chicken farmer.. Jacks, who is a cousin of Blackmon’s, said poultry growers provide food for the table.
“Everybody in here eats chicken. It’s so hypocritical to complain about people wanting to build chicken houses,’’ Jacks told the crowd. “It is hot, dirty, nasty work and sometimes smelly.You ought to thank God there’s people like me … and people that want to do this.’’
“If you can’t build chicken houses (in Mountville) as rural as it is, you can’t build them anywhere.’’
Overall, the S.C. Farm Bureau said poultry production is an important part of the state’s economy.
“Poultry farming accounts for $1.5 billion in direct sales annually and makes up 40% of all agricultural receipts for South Carolina,’’ spokeswoman Stephanie Sox said in an email. “A strong poultry sector means jobs and, more importantly, food for South Carolinians and people around the country and world.’’
Modern poultry farming is done through a system known as “vertical integration,’’ a method of agriculture controlled largely by big agribusiness corporations such as Perdue, House of Raeford and Tyson Foods.
Agribusinesses typically supply birds, medicine and feed to local farmers. The farmers take out loans to build barns and they tend to the chickens. When the chickens are ready for market, the farm corporations will pay the local farmers a price the corporations believe is fair.
It’s a system that has detractors because of environmental issues and because local growers are sometimes at the mercy of farm corporations. The system also produces few jobs at the farms, although poultry slaughterhouses do employ significant numbers of people.
But poultry farming also has shown to be efficient at producing plenty of chickens and a consistency in birds grown for the table.
Sox said food production is one of the most important functions a business can provide.
“What’s not to love about people growing local food and supporting their local community?’’ Sox asked.
Chicken power
SCRAP members know first-hand about the political muscle the poultry industry wields with the General Assembly.
Farm lobbyists have persuaded the Legislature to prohibit local governments from regulating chicken farms, while also loosening state rules that govern poultry farming. Supporters of poultry-friendly regulation say the industry is too important to burden with undue rules that lead to court disputes.
State Sen. Danny Verdin, a Laurens County Republican and supporter of big agriculture, was not available for comment. But in pushing to block local poultry ordinances in 2006, Verdin said county laws restricting animal farms had “caused a crisis within the agricultural community.’’
Then, after limiting local control over big chicken farms, the Legislature weakened state control. In 2018, it restricted the state environmental department’s ability to require certain distances between chicken farms and their neighbors. The Legislature also changed the law to limit the number of people who can appeal chicken farm permits to those within one mile of the farm.
Last year, in a substantial victory for poultry farms, the then-state Department of Health and Environmental Control effectively nullified a major court decision by changing farming regulations.
A 2022 S.C. Court of Appeals ruling said Blackmon’s group was right to raise concerns about farms polluting the Little River.
The court said state regulators had misinterpreted South Carolina environmental rules by not requiring a water pollution discharge permit for the farms SCRAP was opposing.
Such a permit establishes pollution limits that would protect the Little River unless the state agency could show that the proposed chicken farms would not worsen water contamination, the court said. The river already is suffering from elevated bacteria levels from farming that make swimming unsafe at times.
In its ruling, the appeals court said the state was wrong when it concluded that “no additional requirements or setbacks were needed because the agricultural facilities are not considered contributors’’ to water pollution.
But instead of complying with the ruling, DHEC dropped regulations the court said required pollution permits, arguing that other environmental laws would protect the Little River. At about the same time, the chicken farmers applied for new permits.
Despite the setbacks, Blackmon and SCRAP have managed to slow plans for some poultry farms through court settlements.
But the Coggins and Young farms are pressing ahead. Attorneys for Coggins and Young have filed papers in court asking a judge to throw out SCRAP’s most recent legal challenge to the farmers’ plans.
The farmers’ attorneys say changes in the law warrant dismissal of Blackmon’s case against the proposed farms..
In June, the then-S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control issued permits for Coggins and Young to establish chicken farms along Lisbon Road in Laurens County.
The agency, now called the Department of Environmental Services, examined plans to control odors and flies, and how the facilities would dispose of dead chickens that did not survive to be taken to market. The agency also looked at water quality issues.
All of those plans appeared to be in order, agency records show.
A major issue in the challenge to the permit revolves around the impact the proposed chicken houses would have on the Little River.
Cleanup plans required by state and federal law call for reductions of fecal coliform bacteria of 39 percent to 78 percent in parts of the Little River and an adjacent creek, which would be enough to make it safe for recreational swimming, a Saluda River basin watershed plan says.
Yet the Department of Environmental Services has approved the Coggins and Young chicken farms. Blackmon and law project attorneys say cleanup plans for the Little River were put together 20 years ago and the water is still polluted.
“We’ve got a river that we know is impaired and we’re living on it and own land on almost two miles of it, and we cannot get an answer from the state on how they’re cleaning it up,’’ Blackmon said.
Runoff is a concern because the proposed farms sit on a hill that has gullies that could easily channel tainted water into the Little River, said Ross Stewart, a former official with the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency that monitors soil health.
Stewart, also a SCRAP member, lives near the chicken farms and is working with Blackmon to limit the density of poultry barns. They say they’ll continue the fight.
“One of my greatest fears is that they come to your community, slip in there like a wolf in sheep’s clothing because sometimes they’re your neighbors that you’ve grown up with,’’ Blackmon said. “Then next thing you know, it’s out of hand.’’
