Residents of La Prairie and surrounding areas voice their opinions about a potential egg farm in the township.
The town board held a public hearing Tuesday night, where officials from S&R Egg Farm addressed concerns over traffic, water usage, air quality, odors and manure.
Dr. Lee Borneman said the company has to meet state regulations for odor and air quality, and their chickens have a much lower tolerance for ammonia and contaminants than humans.
They plan to build a $100 million farm site in La Prairie to eventually house up to 3 million hens, but environmental engineer Todd Watermolen said it would take 5-10 years to get up to full size.
He indicated their desire to start work on the property in 2020 and get buildings up in 2021.
In terms of traffic, Watermolen said an average of 30 trucks per day would come in and out of the farm between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays, using interstate 39/90 as the primary route between La Prairie and their facility near Whitewater.
He said their water meters record them using roughly 130,000 gallons of water per day at the Whitewater farm, which is a similar size to what they plan in La Prairie.
Town officials toured the farm in Walworth County and said it well kept and didn’t have an odor.
