KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette Top photo, Layne Oden of Muncy, right, asks Civil Engineeer Jonathan Zartman questions during a conditional use hearing at the Muncy Area Voluteer Fire Company on Thursday.

Muncy Creek Township Supervisors continued with their conditional use hearing for the proposed Sunny Side Up Farms LLC. on Clarkstown Road, just a half a mile from the borough of Muncy.

Muncy Area Volunteer Fire Co. was packed again as township Supervisors Eric Newcomer and Harley Fry II heard from applicants who want to build five barns each housing 70,000 free-range chickens for egg laying and collecting them in trucks for distribution.

That many chickens is a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), and it would be combined with a solar panel and equipment farm, producing 33 megawatt of electricity for PPL. It would be sited on land zoned for agriculture purposes between Fogelman and Muncy Exchange roads, on a former Christmas tree farm.

It’s a joint venture between the Lancaster County-based Bollinger and Wagner families. Bollinger Solar LLC is the applicant and a company called Ag Ventures would provide the limited staff (about four to five persons) to operate the CAFO on a daily basis, according to the project proposal. The hearings have been occurring since the spring. Muncy Area Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, a citizens group against the project, hired legal counsel and experts who began to be presented as witnesses.

The questions on this CAFO-only-hearing ranged from the amount of grazing pasture acreage, to an estimate on how many trucks would be brought in and out on a daily and annual basis.

It continued with testimony by Jonathan Zartman, a civil engineer, who said there would be one truck per barn per day, about 258 trucks per barn, for an estimated 1,290 trucks per year.

Attorney Zachary DuGan, representing the Muncy Area Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, a citizens group against the CAFO and solar project, asked Zartman a question about the odor management plan as presented for the supervisors. Zartman noted how it was not for this proposed facility, but rather a separate facility, one with one existing barn and a hog barn.

Layne Oden, an attorney who lives on Muncy Exchange Road, asked Zartman how many chickens were on that farm, a question Zartman could not answer.

It would be a different scope for an odor and management plan for Sunny Side Up Farms.

Attorney J. Michael Wiley, solicitor for the township, asked Zartman questions to further clarify some previous figures provided in testimony.

For example, Zartman said the updated plan indicates 4,944 solar panels or 3.1 direct current megawatts for each one of the 11 solar projects, or the combined 33 megawatts of electricity interconnected to PPL lines.

Codes Inspection Inc. zoning officer Victor Marquardt testified how he denied the application due to the solar portion being at the time a “use not provided for.”

That has been amended by supervisors. CAFOs have long been allowable in ag land under conditional use.

He has delayed, not waived, sewer and stormwater management drainage plans, which may end up being reviewed, if the project were to move to land development stage, he said.

Coalition witness, Robert Rabb, of Muncy Exchange Road, testified to owning a business (a restaurant) adjacent to a farm field in which chicken manure was spread. It was in a different municipality. Later, Rabb said he had the private well water tested and it had samples of fecal coliform and nitrates, a well that had to be treated.

Samuel Wiser, attorney for the applicant, asked Rabb if he had ever brought in a geologist or hydrogeologist, which he said he did not.

Wiser also asked, and had Rabb affirm under oath, that septic systems can fail and he questioned Rabb as to the distance of the septic system from the well in question. Rabb, however, remained firm in his response, saying that it was not due to a failed septic system but was because of the chicken manure spread near the restaurant.

Additional testimony was provided on geological rock formation matters as they pertain to water quality and quantity.

“My feeling is the number is low,” said Richard Henry, a hydrogeologist, testified on behalf of the coalition. He was referring to the 17,500 gallons of water per day, which the applicant said in testimony before that it would need to provide adequate water provision for the CAFO.

Henry also dove heavily into details responding to prior testimony regarding the geologic rock formations beneath the farm. Such data becomes important as it is related to adjacent properties, private wells, and those the Sunny Side Up Farms want to have drilled on site to help provide water for the chicken raising operation. A topographical map listing the different kinds of geological formations beneath the farm and adjacent properties was reviewed by members of the audience.

As this process continues, the solar portion of the conditional use hearing is scheduled to continue at 7 p.m. on Sept. 30. The hearing for the CAFO continues at 7 p.m. on Oct. 8.