Local lawmakers say efforts to provide protections from large chicken facilities failed because of desire for jobs

Seated at the end of the table, State Rep. Eileen Horn, D-Lawrence, and Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, take questions from constituents at a town hall meeting Sunday, March 11, 2018 in Baldwin City.

? At a Sunday town hall meeting in Baldwin City, State Sen. Tom Holland introduced himself and Rep. Eileen Horn as the “chicken coop warriors” for their efforts to protect those who would live near industrial-scale chicken barns supplying Tyson Foods and other large processors.

Holland, D-Baldwin City, and Horn, D-Lawrence, told the 22 constituents who attended the gathering at the Baldwin City Lumberyard Arts Center that they were unsuccessful in stopping the Tyson Chicken-backed Senate Bill 405. The legislation would allow an owner to operate a chicken barn with up to 333,333 birds within a quarter-mile of a residence without a Kansas Department of Health and Environment permit. Holland said the current limit on the number of chickens was 125,000 birds.

In September 2017, Leavenworth County and then-Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration agreed to offer incentives for Tyson Foods to build a $320 million slaughtering and processing plant outside Tonganoxie that could process up to 1.25 million birds per week. The deal collapsed in the face of massive opposition.

Holland said the legislation was a prelude to another Tyson attempt to build a chicken processing plant in northeast Kansas. Although it may be farther away from Douglas County than the proposed Tonganoxie plant, it could still have local consequences.

“These chicken barns can be up to 50 miles from a processing plant,” he said. “They could put one of these plants somewhere in southeast Franklin County or Miami County along the Interstate 35 corridor or west of Topeka. If you have a plant that processes 1.25 million birds a week, you’re probably going to need 40 to 50 of these super chicken-poop coops at a minimum.”

A 333,333-capacity chicken coop would create 140 million pounds of chicken manure a year, Holland estimated. Because of that kind of impact, he proposed an amendment in the Senate that would have allowed residents to file a protest petition to force a countywide vote on the facilities.

“That amendment went down pretty decisively,” he said. “On the Senate side, we got the strong message that the governor, the ag industry and their allies in Senate leadership wanted the jobs that would come with this — and they are not very good jobs — and they are not very concerned about the rights of property owners.”

Horn said that on Friday, the bill won first-round approval on the Kansas House floor. Her proposed amendment to roll back the number of chickens allowed without a permit to the original 125,000 birds was defeated 44 to 75.

Horn said she also attempted this session to protect landowners from unknowingly buying properties on which the mineral rights were owned by others. That is a concern when oil and gas well leaseholders inject saltwater into wells to make them more productive. The bill, which made it out of committee but died before a full House vote, would have required those buying property to be informed that surface rights might not include the mineral rights.

“I borrowed the language from Colorado, and I did get the industry to testify neutral on it,” she said. “I hope to bring it back next year.”

She also is planning to introduce a bill that could change the Kansas Corporation Commission process of approving injection wells, Horn said. Currently, KCC issues injection well permits after negotiations involving only the landowner and well operator, despite what Horn said was an increased threat to neighboring properties from earthquakes caused by injection wells.

“I’m looking to introduce a bill this session to have a task force study that process and hopefully come up with something more transparent that reflects current reality,” she said.

In recent years, K-12 education funding dominated legislative town hall sessions. There was some talk on the subject Sunday, but the two lawmakers said the Legislature was in a holding pattern as it waited on consultant Lori Taylor, of Texas A&M, to finish a report in the coming week on how much it will cost the state to comply with a Kansas Supreme Court order to provide adequate funding for Kansas public schools.

Holland said he did not have much confidence in the report, noting that House and Senate leadership hired Taylor.

Holland said a voiced concern from Rep. Steven Johnson, R-Assaria, that the state would have to double property taxes to fund court-ordered education increases was gamesmanship. Although “hundreds of millions” would be needed to adequately fund education, there would be no support in Topeka to raise property taxes for that purpose, Holland said.

In regard to another tax issue, Holland said he had introduced legislation to reduce the sales tax on food from the current 6.5 cents per dollar to 2 cents by July 2020.

“That’s currently in the Senate Tax Committee. I know the chairman is really anxious to get that knocked out, so maybe we can offer a little bit of sales tax relief,” he said.