Health dept. will deal with chicken farm requests, Madison Co. Commission votes

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — The Madison County Commission voted in favor of having the Jackson-Madison County Health Department deal with requests related to proposed mega chicken farms.

“We’re limited about what we can do and the full body put it on the property committee’s agenda for us to discuss when we met this month,” said District 10 County Commissioner Harold Petty.

Petty says commissioners attempted to help as much as they could, but found they were limited by state law.

“I put it before CTASK and before our county associate organization, and they all pretty much told us the same thing, that law logistics on the books that kept us from taking any kind of action as far as zoning goes,” Petty said.

Protesters say they understand that this matter is out of commissioner’s hands, and they are hopeful that the health department will be able to help them better at reaching their goals.

“They handled this as effectively as they could,” said Beech Bluff resident Claude Johnson. “They’ve supported the regulations, the chances for us to do the best we can to stop this from coming into Madison County.”

Johnson says this is the best option to see how these farms will affect our health.

“It’s really good based off of state law, this is the best thing that our county can do to control and help the health and safety of our residents of Madison County in regards to the mega chicken operations,” Johnson said.

“Hopefully it will encourage them to take action,” Petty said. “That’s what our intentions are, is for them to look at it and explore the possibilities. There’s so many things to look at about how this could affect the local environment.”

Commissioners requested the health department investigate the claim by January 15.