Two environmental groups and dozens of private citizens on Maryland’s Eastern Shore have renewed their legal fight against a massive, open-air tank containing foul-smelling chicken guts and other leftover body parts in Wicomico County.
A lawsuit filed Oct. 22 in Wicomico County Circuit Court seeks to have the 3-million-gallon tank removed. It also calls for nearby residents to be paid financial damages and for the county to receive payment equal to the facility’s profits in its five years of operation.
The plaintiffs include more than two dozen residents of Mardela Springs as well as the Wicomico Environmental Trust and Friends of the Nanticoke River.
They allege that the tank’s “rancid” odors detract from the use of their homes by attracting flies and making it unpleasant to be outdoors or open their windows. Some people driving in the area, the suit asserts, have reported being so overwhelmed by the smell that they had to pull off the road to vomit.
County leaders banned the construction of such poultry meat-packing waste storage tanks after the Mardela Springs facility had been built. But they maintained that the action couldn’t be applied to the existing tank because its use is grandfathered under the previous rule.
The lawsuit contends that the county does have the power to shut the facility down. It alleges that the tank’s owner, Edmond “Biff” Burns, misrepresented the tank’s purpose when he received the county’s approval in 2019. Therefore, the tank “never lawfully existed,” according to the suit.
“The fact is that the tank should never have been built here,” said Lynette Kenney, a neighbor and one of the plaintiffs. “It is a large-scale commercial and industrial waste storage operation that was inaccurately represented as an agricultural operation to obtain zoning and building permits.”
The conflict centers around byproducts of the chicken industry: the remaining fats, skin, feathers and chunks of meat. The substance is commonly called DAF — which stands for dissolved air floatation, a waste treatment process that produces a nutrient-rich soil additive popular among farmers.
Burns couldn’t be reached for comment.
Denali, the Arkansas-based company that transports the biosolids, issued a statement in response to the lawsuit, acknowledging that the creation of fertilizers can produce odors but that measures are taken to minimize them. The tank complies with requirements of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, the company added.
A faulty pipe, though, led to a spill of up to 36,000 gallons of sludge into the wetlands adjacent to the tank in 2023. Burns cleaned up the site and paid an $8,500 fine.
Neighbors have previously filed suit to overturn the tank’s zoning approval and, in a separate case, to have its stormwater permit revoked. Neither challenge was successful.
The saga has attracted a prominent name in Maryland politics. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs is listed as Doug Gansler, a Democrat who was the state’s attorney general from 2007-2015 and ran an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2014.
Gansler was drawn to the case through personal acquaintance with one of the tank’s neighbors and his longtime interest in protecting the environment, said Carol Dunahoo, president of the Wicomico Environmental Trust.