Chickens are coming home to roost in a small Franklin County town as angry citizens question its plans for a wastewater treatment plant that could clear the way for a new poultry processing plant sending more than a million gallons of treated wastewater a day into the Broad River.
The uprising has been front-page news not just in Franklin, but in other counties downstream as word spread about the town of Franklin Springs’ proposed wastewater treatment plant on land it owns near the intersection of U.S. Highway 29 and Georgia Highway 145.
There’s no specific plan, at least publicly, for a poultry processing plant in Franklin Springs, a town of about 1,200 people 30 miles north of Athens that’s the home of Emmanuel University, a private Christian college of around 800 students. But the Madison County Journal confirmed earlier this month that emails obtained through the newspaper’s open records request showed Franklin Springs Mayor Lee Moore had been in talks with officials at Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the nation’s largest chicken producers, about how much wastewater treatment capacity a large poultry processing plant might require.
The town and county are in the heart of Georgia’s poultry industry, by far the state’s leading agricultural sector—about 40%, in dollars, of the state’s entire agricultural output. Franklin is the state’s second-largest poultry-producing county, with about half a billion dollars in 2023, according to the University of Georgia’s 2023 Farm Gate Value Report, behind only neighboring Hart County ($531 million). Madison County, No. 3 at $389 million, and Oglethorpe County, No. 6 at $258 million, are also among the state’s top poultry producing counties.
Even before the Madison County newspaper’s report, irate citizens packed a meeting of the Franklin Springs City Council last month, The Franklin County Citizen Leader newspaper reported. They asked Moore and council members if the rumors about a poultry plant coming in were true, and weren’t satisfied with the answers, or non-answers. Some have called on Moore, who also sits on the county’s Industrial Building Authority, to resign.
The 60-mile Broad River drains one of the Georgia Piedmont region’s least-developed watersheds, though it is subject to the main source of river pollution for most Georgia rivers: runoff from agriculture.
Celebrated for its wildlife and beauty, the Broad flows through or borders Athens’ neighboring counties of Madison and Oglethorpe, as well as Wilkes and Lincoln counties, before it joins the Savannah River in Elbert County at Lake Thurmond. It’s a popular spot for tubing, kayaking, canoeing and fishing among Athens residents.
On Monday, Apr. 7, it was the Franklin County Board of Commissioners’ turn to hear from irate citizens from Franklin and neighboring counties who wanted to know who knew what and when. Some asked the commissioners during nearly two hours of public comments to somehow ensure there wouldn’t be a poultry processing plant on the Broad, even if it meant breaking an intergovernmental agreement the county has with Franklin Springs about the proposed wastewater treatment plant. The county’s own treatment facility is approaching its capacity limit with increasing demand, and it seemed to county commissioners it would be a wiser use of taxpayer money to invest in the Franklin Springs facility to the tune of $6 million for rights to a portion of the treatment plant’s capacity rather than go it alone and spend $20 million, said Commissioner Josh Smith.
“What are we supposed to do when growth comes?” asked Commissioner Cory Pulliam. “You’ve got to do something.”
Another commissioner, Elizabeth Busby, said they had been told an industry was coming that would need treatment capacity, but not what that industry was. “Had I known all this, I would never have signed the agreement,” she said.
The county government has no authority over Franklin Springs, and with the signed intergovernmental agreement already in place, the commission’s hands are tied, they told the crowd. “We were told they were doing this with or without us,” said Smith.
“You’re going to have to rescind that agreement,” said one resident.
“I’m confused and hurt by the lack of transparency,” said another. “I don’t trust my Franklin Springs officials any more.”
Commission Chair Courtney Long had already contacted area county commissions in the Broad watershed, urging them to adopt a resolution asking state environmental officials to ensure the Broad’s continued health. The resolution asks the state to protect the Broad River from “the development of industrial facilities and other potential sources of pollution.”
Franklin commissioners adopted the resolution unanimously at the beginning of their monthly meeting, before the two hours of public comment the commission allowed. On the same day, Oglethorpe County commissioners planned to vote on their version of the resolution. Madison County’s Board of Commissioners had already adopted the resolution earlier this month, with some acid commentary from Madison County Commission Chair Todd Higdon about what was unfolding in Franklin Springs, the Madison County Journal reported. That meeting also drew a crowd of around 200.
“How is this the Christlike thing?” asked one speaker at the Franklin County meeting. “The lies, the deceit… And how has Emanuel [University] not said anything?”
“Where are the leaders in the county?” asked another.
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