Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
St. Henry egg farm could become state's second largest after permits OK'd
By Nancy Allen
The Ohio Department of Agriculture has issued final permits to a St. Henry poultry farm, clearing the way for it to become the second largest egg farm in Ohio.
Rindler Poultry LLC, 5478 Watkins Road, wants to expand to house almost 2.5 million birds from its current capacity of 1.29 million.
No one submitted any written comments on a draft Permit to Install (PTI) and a draft Permit to Operate (PTO) during a required public comment period held recently on the expansion. Approval of the permits is required to complete the expansion.
The PTI will allow the construction of a 10th layer barn capable of housing 370,000 birds, the replacement of an existing layer barn (called Building 2) with a larger one to house another 370,000 birds, and the remodeling of four existing barns (Buildings 5-8) to increase the capacity of each to 270,000. The changes would increase the maximum capacity of the entire facility to 2,492,000 laying hens.
The PTO, valid for five years, would regulate operations for the entire facility, including plans for manure management, insect and rodent control, management of dead birds and emergency response, as in the case of a manure release or power outage.
The total solid manure storage capacity at the farm would be 991,470 cubic feet, providing 223 days of manure storage. There would be no changes to the existing three egg wash water storage lagoons, which provide more than a year's worth of storage and can hold 3.5 million gallons of egg wash water.
The egg wash water is irrigated onto the farm's fields and all the manure is sold off the farm, said ODA spokesman Bill Schwaderer.
The farm also has no records of pollution violations or complaints on file with ODA.
Ralph Rindler and his brother, Randy Rindler, started in the layer business in 1983 and it now employs about 50, Ralph said in a previous story. The business also provides hundreds of indirect jobs, including those at feed mills, egg carton and cardboard supplies, trucking companies and others.
The farm currently produces around 500,000 dozen eggs per week.
