SALISBURY – Officials voted last week to prohibit dissolved air flotation (DAF) storage in Wicomico County.
Following a public hearing Oct. 4, the Wicomico County Council voted unanimously to approve legislation banning the storage of liquid organic fertilizer or soil amendments.
The passage of the bill, one of three presented to the council last month, concludes a three-year effort by local elected officials and county residents to address concerns associated with DAF storage.
“This [bill] came about after it was decided prohibition may be possible,” council attorney Andrew Mitchell said this week. “I was directed to determine whether it was within the authority of the council to do that. I provided a legal opinion, and the brief answer was the Wicomico County Council can exercise those powers granted by the state of Maryland not limited by the county charter and does have the authority to prohibit and regulate the storage of DAF within the county.”
The topic of DAF storage was first introduced in 2019, when a building permit was issued to allow a local farmer to construct a multi-million-gallon DAF tank on Porter Mill Road. Several nearby residents and environmental advocacy groups, however, have since shared their concerns with the council regarding the smells and potential hazards associated with the tank. There has also been litigation in Wicomico County Circuit Court challenging the validity of that storage tank and the permit issued for its construction.
Too little…..too late, for the homeowners in the area whose lives have been destroyed by the horrible stench from the Burns tank on Porter Mill Road. These people can no longer enjoy any summer outdoor activities and the smell even gets into their homes. This tank should never have been approved to be placed there in the first place. I bet if it had gone in the neighborhood of Joe Holloway or John Cannon, it never would have happened and they would have voted differently.
I also live outside of Hebron and they dump this shit on the fields surrounding my home. Harcum is the worst offender of this. Horse and Cow Manure I can handle, but chicken waste stays in the air for weeks! You can even smell in in parts of downtown Salisbury as well. Pure greed at the expense of the environment and the underground aquifers that supply most of our drinking water. I believe it is factory farming that is causing most of the problems on the shore.
Burns and Harcum are two peas in a pod.
Put them Downtown !!!! LOL Put a Bike Lane around them too !!!!! Or a ROUNDABOUT !!! LOL LOL
Unfortunately one greedy farmer is causing misery to a whole community of decent folks. The permit for this tank should have never been granted especially since the site was not looked at nor was the owner subject to many of the regulations AND TAXES the general public would have been subjected to. Meanwhile Wicomico County residents are paying for Riggin Road (that leads to the tank) to be repaved and the trees along Riggin to be trimmed away from the road. Everyone should be mad and demand an in-depth inquiry to why this permit was issued in the first place. Just because other storage probably won’t be permitted doesn’t mean this tank should be allowed to remain.
Jonesy…………..I wholeheartedly agree with you. The approval of that tank was done in a sleezy, secretive way and none of the neighbors were given the opportunity to object to it. It’s so wrong to allow something like this to go on that is effecting the lives of so many hard working, decent people! It should be done away with.