KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette Muncy Creek Solicitor J. Michael Wiley rreads then list of conditions to baord applied to application for a CAFO and solar energy array for in the township at a meeting Thursday night.

After a year and three months of periodic public hearings, two Muncy Creek Township supervisors have granted conditional use approval for three chicken barns for egg production and a combined solar energy array on land owned by a Lancaster County-based business.

Supervisors Eric Newcomer, chair, and Harley Fry II, sans Supervisor Gary Phillips, who was asked to recuse himself, granted the application for the concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) of three, not five, barns and a solar array farm with the CAFO and solar panels not to be located in any part of the residential zone of the property, which is primarily zoned for agricultural conservation use.

They placed 40 conditions on the application that was first presented during a hearing last April.

The application does not name Sunny Side Up Farms, which is the landowner and the proposed name of the farm, based on witness testimony, nor does it name the daily management operator, AgVentures Inc., also of Lancaster County. Bollinger Solar officials presented evidence and gave testimony at the hearings.

The property is owned by Sunny Side Up Farms, as per the Lycoming County parcel viewer service listing the most updated real estate ownership.

The hearing at the township building on Route 442 was fairly well attended and the decision was absent of any commotion unlike some of the other hearings, including those at the Muncy Area Volunteer Fire Co. headquarters.

“We tried to be fair,” Newcomer said, when it was shared with him how unusually quiet it was at the public meeting for the conditional use decision by the two supervisors.

The two proposed barns closest to Fogelman Road were not approved by the board. One of more conditions included the applicant agreeing not to allow spreading of manure on the site.

Recently, residents complained as a farmer was doing just that, causing the manure to cling on high weeds and not get tilled into the ground, creating a foul odor that was making people notice and get ill.

The property is fronted by Clarkstown Road, bordered on either side by Fogelman and Muncy Exchange roads, and close to hundreds of township and Muncy borough residential properties. It lies about a quarter of a mile from Ward L. Myers Elementary School in the Muncy School District, which factored majorly into the conditions, to include air quality testing at the school.

The 40 conditions the board placed on granting conditional use were read by J. Michael Wiley, township solicitor with McCormick Law Firm who also formed a motion before saying the applicant’s request for conditional use was granted with the conditions.

The applicant’s attorney, Samuel E. Wiser Jr. of Salzmann Hughes was present and a representative for the applicant, as was Zachary DuGan, with Perciballi & Williams, counsel for Muncy Area Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, a citizens’ grassroots group opposed to the projects. The coalition has reserved comments for another time, according to a coalition spokesman. Also in attendance was Victor Marquardt, township zoning officer with Code Inspections Inc.

The next phase for the applicant and township officials will be the land development plan review and approval process, according to supervisors.

The 40 specific conditions were in the process of becoming memorialized and will be available for residents and interested parties to look at.

The board has through July 11 to produce a written decision.

The conditions cover such things as nutrient management and odor abatement plans, vegetative screening, firefighter access, fire company receiving a UTV paid for by the applicant, bonding and decommissioning, air quality monitoring and a host of other protective measures.