Mountaire Farms has reached a settlement with a group of 106 residents of Sussex County, Delaware, that has sued the company over environmental worries.
Jacobs & Crumplar, a law firm representing plaintiffs in the case, explained in a press release that many years ago, Townsend Inc. purchased land from the plaintiffs to start a new poultry farm. But since late 2017, the decision to sell land has been questioned by the plaintiffs. Mountaire Farms purchased the Townsend poultry processing facility in 2000.
In its release, the legal firm stated Mountaire “has violated its waste disposal permits and has been spraying too many contaminates onto their fields,” alleging that in doing so, Mountaire has caused “extreme water contamination” and “health problems such as gastrointestinal issues, thyroid problems and various birth defects have been reported in the past few years.”
The lawsuit began in 2018, and according to Jacobs & Crumplar, ended in the form of a private settlement for the 106 plaintiffs.
Due to the legal nature of the matter, Mountaire declined to comment.
Mountaire in recent years has worked to make the environmental situation better. In 2017, Sean McKeon, then-Mountaire Farms director of communication and community relations who has since been appointed by the Trump administration to serve as the Delaware state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency, outlined plans Mountaire had developed to correct issues with its wastewater treatment system.
McKeon said at the time, that the company had committed to a two-phase plan to make improvements. The first phase of the plan was to increase the oxygen levels, increase the biosolid removals and increase its water analysis at the Millsboro facility.
The second phase of the project was to do a complete upgrade of the wastewater treatment system at the Millsboro facility.
Mountaire Farms produced 57.39 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis in 2019.
