Family physician Dr. Steven Barrows, admittedly, is not against poultry farms.

Barrows, of Muncy, shared how he wants people to eat healthy food such as eggs, which are a source of protein and nutrients.

What Barrows disagrees with and testified to before and during a recent conditional use hearing for Sunny Side Up Farms, a Lancaster County-based agriculture business that wants to bring a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) close to the borough in Muncy Creek Township, is its location.

“I’m not opposed to CAFOs in the right place,” he told the Sun-Gazette.

Sunny Side Up Farms owners want to bring in five barns 88 feet by 616 feet in length, each housing 70,000 free-range chickens. Also on the site is a proposed 55,000-plus solar panel energy facility in 11 separate sections presented by Bollinger Solar LLC.

Barrows said he has children attending Ward L. Myers Elementary School, which has about 450 students and is less than a mile away, as established in this hearing record, from the proposed CAFO.

He frequently has stressed how his fight with this project is not only for those students and staff there but for generations of youngsters and their adult teachers and administrators and those in the neighborhoods of the township and borough, including immuno-suppressed individuals.

Though a medical doctor, Barrows said his appearance before the township supervisors — Eric Newcomer, chair; and Harley Fry II — remained solely as a “lay witness and concerned citizen.”

He made it clear that nothing in his testimony relied on or reflected medical expertise, and nothing he presented constituted a medical opinion, diagnosis, or interpretation.

Instead, Barrows read verbatim passages from publicly available government documents that he noted any member of the public could locate through internet search, public libraries, or Freedom Of Information Act requests.

Any parent of a child attending the elementary school located less than one mile from this proposed facility who discovered that Centers for Disease Control, Environmental Protection Agency and Government Accounting Office had published reports documenting health risks from the exact type of facility proposed next to their children’s school would take the same steps, Barrows stated.

“My training helped me know where to look,” he added. “It did not change what the government published.”

Barrows compiled five government publications from what he said were three federal agencies that bear directly on the question before the board. He read relevant passages from each document verbatim and offered them for the board’s consideration. All five documents were also in written form submitted for the board pursuant to the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.

It is Barrows’ contention that under this state’s law, the applicant bears the initial burden of presenting competent evidence establishing that the proposed use satisfies every specific, objective criterion of the zoning ordinance.

Only after the applicant satisfies that burden does a presumption of compatibility arise. Only then does the burden shift to objectors, he said.

The testimony does not ask the board to reach the objector-burden stage. The five government publications are offered for two limited purposes: first, as background information about the type of facility being proposed, so the board could understand what its own ordinance criteria require in context; and second, as information relevant to the board’s assessment of whether the applicant’s assurances of regulatory compliance constitute competent evidence of ordinance compliance.

Samuel E. Wiser Jr., the applicants’ attorney, objected to Barrows’ statement trying to read into the record the first exhibit arguing it was not from the government directly, meaning it was funded by the CDC and not representing the agency.

Nevertheless, of particular interest to Barrows was on children’s heightened vulnerability to CAFOs.

“While all community members are at risk from lowered air quality, children take in 20-50% more air than adults, making them more susceptible to lung disease and health effects,” the publication stated.

On proximity and childhood asthma, it cited: “Researchers in North Carolina found that the closer children live to a CAFO, the greater the risk of asthma symptoms.”

This official government finding is offered for the board’s consideration. On school proximity, it cited: “Of the 226 schools that were included in the study, 26% stated that there were noticeable odors from CAFOs outdoors, while 8% stated that CAFO odors were noticeable indoors.”

On consistent evidence of increased childhood asthma, the report stated: “There is consistent evidence suggesting that factory farms increase asthma in neighboring communities, as indicated by children having higher rates of asthma. CAFOs emit particulate matter and suspended dust, which is linked to asthma and bronchitis.

Smaller particles can actually be absorbed by the body and can have systemic effects, including cardiac arrest. If people are exposed to particulate matter over a long time, it can lead to decreased lung function.

On CAFO pollutants and health risks: “Ammonia, which is formed when microbes decompose undigested organic nitrogen compounds in manure. This is a colorless, sharp pungent odor with health risks such as being a respiratory irritant, chemical burns to the respiratory tract, skin, and eyes, severe cough, chronic lung disease.”

“Hydrogen sulfide, an anaerobic bacterial decomposition of protein and other sulfur containing organic matter, with the odor of rotten eggs and with health risks being inflammation of the moist membranes of eye and respiratory tract, olfactory neuron loss, and death,” the publication he presented stated.

“Particulate matter, such as from feed, bedding materials, dry manure, unpaved soil surfaces, animal dander, poultry feathers. This comprises fecal matter, feed materials, pollen, bacteria, fungi, skin cells, silicates. Health risks: Chronic bronchitis, chronic respiratory symptoms, declines in lung function, organic dust toxic syndrome.”

For the board’s understanding, Barrows noted, these pollutants – ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and particulate matter – are documented as community-level exposures outside the barns.

Mechanically ventilated poultry barns use tunnel ventilation systems that exhaust air from inside the barns to the outside environment. Modern ventilation is designed to protect the birds inside the barn by moving pollutants outside to the surrounding community.

As reflected in the hearing record, the applicant’s representative confirmed that exhaust air from these barns will not be filtered.

The CDC-funded document addresses what happens to the people – the community – who live and attend school in the path of these unfiltered exhaust emissions.

Depending on weather conditions and farming techniques, CAFO odors can be smelled from as much as 5 or 6 miles away, although 3 miles is a more common distance.”

For the applicant, those who are applying and are proponents of Sunny Side Up Farms and the AgVentures, the daily manager/operator, have presented testimony that the farm would consistently follow ordinance and any state and federal environmental and health regulations that are on the books. Supervisors were told that every effort would be made to mitigate any negative factors that may arise from the farm’s operation such as odor, flies, dust, pathogens and biohazards.

The hearings began last April. The next hearing is set to begin at 7 p.m. on May 27 at the township building on Route 442. It is to consist of concluding remarks, according to an attorney involved in the process.