State Ruffles Feathers Over Cochranville Turkey Farmer’s Expansion Plans

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The state attorney general has ruffled the feathers of some rural Cochranville residents and local leaders by taking sides with their neighbor, a turkey farmer who has applied to expand on 28 acres next door to them.

Neighbor Elizabeth Janowski and Highland Township officials have argued that conditions should allow a buffer from the 700-foot barn before it brings 12,000 turkeys in every year, but Attorney General Kathleen Kane is threatening litigation against the township under the authority of a 2010 law sponsored by none other than Cochranville Rep. Art Hershey, according to a recent Daily Local News report.

“Farms need to be able to grow just like businesses,” Hershey said in the article. “If they are not, people are just not going to go into farming.”

Highland Township is expected to meet Tuesday to discuss the issue.

“We are prepared to bring legal action against the township to challenge the ordinance provisions set forth above and the township’s refusal to allow Mr. (David) Lantz to proceed with his project,” Kane said in a letter quoted in the article.

Read more about the stalemate and how the Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment Act overrides township ordinances in the Daily Local News here.

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Top photo credit: Turkeys (Missouri State Archives) via photopin (license)

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