A proposed operator of a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) of five barns and 350,000 chickens in Muncy Creek Township would have exhaust fans that point toward the ground.

The applicant, Sunny Side Up Farms, would have a daily management operator, AgVentures, operate the CAFO. Cody Snyder, of AgVentures, previously provided that information in testimony before township supervisors at an ongoing conditional use hearing, testimony that was revisited at the most recent hearing before the board.

“That would be effective if the earth absorbs air,” said Howard Williams, a township resident who presented the supervisors with his own scientific study.

The exhaust air coming from the barns is not filtered, according to Snyder’s prior testimony.

“The earth doesn’t absorb that volume of air, at that velocity,” Williams, a lay witness who has testified on similar subject matter such as chemicals in the environment before Congress, said to a question by Dr. Steven Barrows, a

medical doctor opposed to this project.

He then asked Williams, based on his research into poultry farms, what happens when barn exhaust containing ammonia, particulate matter, hydrogen sulphide and biological aerosols are released without emission or particulate controls?

Steven Wiser, attorney for the applicant, objected to the question and attorney J. Michael Wiley, township board solicitor, sustained that objection.

Barrows then asked Williams about his research on this particular site and whether unfiltered emissions would reach Ward L. Myers Elementary School? The school is about a half-mile or so from the proposed site along Clarkstown Road.

“Yes, I did and I showed that in the Screen3 … also showed the concentration where it would … be in that air,” Williams said.

The Screen3 is an air dispersion model showing plumes in concentric circles from the barns outward to the neighborhoods.

Williams also was asked by Barrows if he found any health impact statement in the applicants’ submission.

“No, I did not,” he said.

The barns would be accompanied by a solar farm of 55,000-plus solar panels separated into 11 sections producing 33 megawatts of electricity.

The proposed site is zoned for agricultural conservation and residential use with the applicants seeking conditional use under the ordinance.