Agricultural Outcry in Loganton: Local Farmers Expose Tensions Over Greene Township Supervisors’ Ordinances, Bonds, and Project Delays
By Emily Wright
GREENE TOWNSHIP—Greene Township farmers and business owners held a press conference on Thursday afternoon at the Sugar Valley Produce Auction in Loganton to inform the public about what they refer to as “overzealous control” that has been imposed by the Greene Township Supervisors and to explain how it’s impacted them. The common theme amongst those who spoke is that the township supervisors are crippling, halting, and financially strapping farms and businesses in the community with their interpretations of local, state, and federal regulations and ordinances.
Advocating for the township’s farmers and business owners was Donna Moenning, Senior Account Director of Look East. Look East is a company comprised of food and agricultural experts who work to improve the agriculture industry and food production process. The company also helps develop sustainable practices that ensure farming and food production benefit consumers and the environment.
Farmers and business owners in Loganton are clashing with Greene Township Supervisors over regulations and fees they’ve imposed on them, such as burdensome bond requirements to use township roads, varying interpretations of the Greene Township Stormwater Management Ordinance, and Improvement Guarantee requirements. Those who’ve been impacted in the township stress that they desperately need support to address these issues so that the local agricultural industry can continue its operations.
The first to speak at the press conference was Justin Snook, President of the Clinton County Farm Bureau and lifelong resident and farmer of Greene Township. Snook shared his concerns about local ordinances hindering agricultural operations in Greene Township and how the Greene Township Stormwater Management Ordinance, in particular, makes it nearly impossible for farmers to operate in the area.
Snook discussed the importance of agriculture to Pennsylvania’s economy and highlighted that it contributes $132.5 billion annually and covers 7.3 million acres of land. He is calling for the township supervisors to lift restrictions and requirements placed on local farmers.
“In 1982, the Right to Farm law was passed, and it says it is a declared policy of the Commonwealth to conserve, protect, and encourage the development and improvement of its agricultural land for the production of food and other agricultural products. In 2005, the ACRE Act, or Act 38, further improved the Right to Farm law. The primary purpose of ACRE, which stands for Agriculture, Communities, and Rural Environment, is to ensure that local governments do not regulate normal agricultural operations and violations of state law; it stops local governments from adopting or enforcing unauthorized local ordinances to hinder agriculture, and that’s definitely what we have going on in Greene Township,” Snook said.
According to Snook, the township’s Stormwater Management Ordinance is much more strict than the county or even the state plan.
Snook also mentioned a new bonding requirement that the township supervisors plan to implement. The bond requires local farmers to pay a $12,500.00 fee for every mile of roadway they travel on to haul equipment and other farm necessities weighing over 10 tons each year. Snook says that the bond requirement poses an unreasonable financial burden to farmers who use the local roads to haul manure, harvested crops, feed, and hay, and he pointed out that even a full pickup truck with a trailer attached to it could easily be over the 10-ton weight limit. “Anybody that’s over 10 tons is probably going to get a letter saying they have to bond the roads they drive on. I certainly can’t afford that, they can’t afford that, and the worst part of it is when you try to talk to the supervisors, I think we all know the attitude that we get back… it’s very un-agriculturally friendly despite the township being predominantly made up of agriculture,” Snook said.
Next to speak was Coreena Meyer, a longtime Greene Township resident, business and farm owner, and Clinton County Conservation District board member. Meyer and her husband, Kent, own a dairy farm in Greene Township, and she spoke about her concerns in hopes of bringing attention to the issues currently affecting Greene Township farmers. “We’re very concerned about the direction things are going in our township, and I would like to give a brief overview of why we are at the point we are at right now,” she said.
“In October 2022, our township supervisors enacted a stormwater management ordinance which was recommended by the township engineer, Todd Pysher of Pysher & Associates, Inc. This ordinance is not agriculturally friendly, and it is very unfriendly to farmers in general. We, as farmers, were unaware that this ordinance was being adopted, and unfortunately, we were not asked to give our opinion or even look at it before it was adopted,” Meyer said. “The engineer convinced the supervisors that it was a law that they needed to adopt. He declared this ordinance to be the best, but it was the best for him and him only,” she added.
Several members of the Loganton Amish community attended the press conference, and although they did not speak publicly, a few shared their recent experiences with the supervisors and Township Engineer Pysher. The situations they shared in conversation echoed the issues presented by Snook and Meyer.
Meyer mentioned that during a township meeting in January of this year, she questioned the engineer and supervisors as to who developed the ordinance. Pysher reported at that meeting that the ordinance was developed for Centre County, which Meyer contends is not comparable to the agricultural community in Clinton County. “I asked if the supervisors had read and understood this ordinance, and two of the supervisors stated that they had not read it, and the other one said he looked it over but didn’t understand it. Now, we are in a position where the township engineer, township zoning officer, and solicitor are calling the shots, and the supervisors are not reining them in. There is no common sense being used whatsoever, and our township is completely out of control,” she emphasized.
Meyer told the story of a Greene Township farmer who was constructing a barn on his property for agricultural purposes when he was mandated by Pysher to put in retention ponds. Between municipal engineering fees and the cost of the mandated ponds, the total expense was in excess of $40,000.00. “The Conservation District Manager did an overlay of the property and determined that there were no resource concerns, but this farmer was forced to not only incur the financial burden but also lose the use of the farm ground that is now taken up by those retention ponds, which are useless,” she said.
Meyer provided another example of a roadblock that Greene Township farm owner Jim Harbach has faced.
The Record attended the September 2023 Greene Township meeting, where Harbach addressed the supervisors regarding the issues he’d been met with while trying to obtain a permit to build a calf barn on his property. Harbach argued that the supervisors were ignoring him and misinterpreting the provisions of the Stormwater Management Ordinance in addition to the Subdivision and Land Development Ordinances (SALDO).
According to Meyer, Harbach has been fighting to complete the calf barn project for at least 18 months. “To my knowledge, he still does not have everything that he needs because the engineer keeps raising the bar and changing the requirements,” she said.
In closing, Meyer mentioned that she had submitted an ACRE challenge to the Attorney General in February 2023, but according to the Attorney General’s office, the document was never received. “I resubmitted it in August 2023, and I have asked twice since then for a response because they were to have 180 days to respond… To this day, I have not received a formal response. We had to resort to this press conference in order to make it known to people in this township and in this state that what is happening to farmers is not fair and it is not right, and there needs to be some changes,” she said. “The Right to Farm law has been ignored, the ACRE law is being ignored, and it is time that our story goes further than just amongst us.”
Duane Eichenlaub, Regulatory and Sustainability Manager at Nicholas Meat, LLC, attended the press conference to address issues brought about by the township supervisors regarding the construction of a Sustainable Resource Facility (SRF). Eichenlaub has been overseeing the SRF project since its groundbreaking ceremony in May 2021. Currently, progress on the SRF is at a standstill because the township supervisors have imposed an Improvement Guarantee on the project.
“Three years ago, almost to the day, community members and local, state, and national dignitaries gathered across the road for Nicholas Meat to celebrate as we broke ground on our sustainable resource facility. The SRF is a first-of-its-kind state-of-the-art facility that will provide important benefits to the community and our environment once completed,” Eichenlaub said. “The SRF is designed to feature advanced Waste to Energy Technology, generating green energy for biogas, decreasing the company’s carbon footprint, capturing greenhouse gases, and reusing water to reduce demand on the area’s water supplies. Just as important, it’s designed to minimize smell and reduce truck traffic, two issues especially important to area residents that we are eager to remedy.”
Eichenlaub reported that the construction of the facility has met and received all necessary approvals from state and federal agencies but has been at a standstill for months due to what the company believes is overzealous control imposed by the township supervisors. “The township supervisors are preventing the project from moving forward by leveraging language found in the SALDO to impose an Improvement Guarantee on Nicholas Meat before construction can resume on the SRF. In other words, they want money upfront as security to ensure that the project is completed,” Eichenlaub explained. “This is a clear misapplication of the SALDO, as improvement guarantees are required only for designated public improvements.”
Eichenlaub explained that the SALDO is intended to protect the township and public entities in the event that public improvement projects are not completed, leaving the township with unfunded public obligations. In this case, however, the SRF is a private project being constructed on private property with private funding from a privately owned business. “Let me reiterate that the project poses absolutely no financial risk to the township,” he said.
Eichenlaub referenced the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), which states that the requirement of an Improvement Guarantee on a private project as unique as the SRF is “Unreasonable and causes undue hardship” and allows for relief from the strict application of ambiguous language found in the SALDO.
“The township supervisors can easily waive the Improvement Guarantee requirement, which has no practical value to the township, and let construction resume. The requirement only adds more significant and unnecessary costs to Nicholas Meat and also adds further delay to the completion of a project that the community and the state clearly want, as it strives to produce food for consumers more sustainably. We’re fully committed to producing beef more sustainably, but our hands are tied at this point. This is truly a case where local control is out of control,” Eichenlaub asserted.
Nicholas Meat is calling for the Greene Township Supervisors to reconsider the requirement of an Improvement Guarantee and grant relief in the form of a waiver, which is identified in the provisions of both the MPC and the Greene Township SALDO so that work on the SRF project can continue to completion. “We are committed to completing this project because it is the right thing to do for the community and our business; however, we will not pay Greene Township what the Pennsylvania MPC states is unreasonable. We have overcome challenges with this project in the past, but nothing like what the township has done, bringing the project to a halt.”
To close his statements, Eichenlaub said that Nicolas Meat has sent a formal request for a waiver of the Improvement Guarantee along with a letter of support from community members and dignitaries to the supervisors, and they look forward to resolving the matter at the regularly scheduled Greene Township meeting on Tuesday, June 4.
To stay current on these issues and learn more, visit the Greene Township website at https://www.greenetwpclintonpa.gov/.
Township meetings are held in the Greene Township Municipal Building, 688 East Valley Road, Loganton, PA.
