The rest of the egg ranch odor story

As a close neighbor to the Pine Hills Egg Ranch, I was directly affected by the really offensive odor created when the ranch spread composted dead chickens and manure on their land recently. After reading Karen’s article, I did a little deeper research.

Sometime in 2013 or 2014 a salmonella outbreak occurred and was blamed on a poultry ranch. The state passed an emergency regulation that kept all dead birds and all manure on the ranch property.

The ranches were/are to compost the dead chickens until they have decomposed to a safe degree indicated by the temperature reached in the compost pile(s) and then spread on the ranch property. In the meantime the Salmonella outbreak was found NOT to be from any poultry ranch, but the regulation has not changed.

The ranches are unable to deposit anything in local ground fills, and cannot even accept or bring in greenery from any landfill to aid composting. The ranches are exempt from odor citations as odors are not considered a health threat.

The odor regulation has been on the books for many years, and we suffered strong odors from the drying of chicken manure on a regular basis over the years.

I was told by an employee of Pine HIlls that the ranchers are looking for an alternate disposal point, perhaps out of California. They are also trying to get a rendering plant to handle the dead chickens either in Southern California, or in neighboring Arizona. This is expected to take around six months to develop if the development goes well.

Now I need to tell you Pine Hills is a very good neighbor. They have a state-of-the-art plant with the best available fly controls. They tried to get the manure/compost spread ahead of projected rain to minimize the affect on its neighbors.

They are building new very large coops that will be state-of-the-art to meet the new California regulations and if they are as clean and automatic as previous buildings on the ranch, there will be very little odor to contend with.

Pine Hills was here before I built my home in Ramona. A little smaller then, but still an egg ranch as a neighbor.

Ron Peterka is a Ramona resident.