BERNARDSTON — The Board of Health plans to look into what legal options it has to address residents’ health concerns stemming from Fullflight Game Farm on Route 5.
For years, residents of the Bernardston Country Estates mobile home park have complained that their neighbors, Fullflight Game Farm, have degraded their quality of life by allowing dust from the game birds’ pens to cross into their neighborhood. Board of Health members said Tuesday that they had previously thought nothing could be done due to the town’s right-to-farm bylaw, but recent opinions from legal experts suggested the board may be able to order some changes be made at the farm.
“Legally, the Board of Health has purview over what’s going on with the farm over there,” Board of Health Chair Barbara Killeen said. “We are so much further along than we were three or four days ago, and I think things are beginning to come to a good place.”
Randy Crochier, health agent with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, told the board that in response to a resident’s inquiry, FRCOG, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, state Sen. Jo Comerford’s office and the Massachusetts Health Officers Association began reviewing agricultural and public health law.
“It has been their determination, a lawyer of MDAR’s and others, that the right-to-farm bylaw does not prevent the Board of Health from doing public health work,” Crochier said. “The board may not be able to ever close it, but they can order things be moved around differently, maybe order the birds be moved to different parts of the property.”
The farm raises a variety of pheasants and partridges. Bernardston Country Estates residents say they have been dealing with issues from the farm for years, and the drought over the summer only exacerbated the amount of dust wafting to the mobile home park.
“I’ve been there since 2001. When I moved in there was no farm. Three years later, they were allowed to park right on top of that line. I lived right on that line and in that first year I had to move because there was smell and dust,” resident Candis Johnson said. “It has gotten worse through the years because of climate change. … This is not a new problem.”
In 2005, Greenfield Recorder archives indicate that residents met with Fullflight Game Farm owner Edwin Gray, the Board of Health and the Selectboard after having unsuccessfully pressed their complaints with state agencies, which had sent inspectors to review the situation. None of the completed inspections yielded problems.
The Selectboard-Board of Health joint meeting ended with mobile home residents agreeing to mediation with Gray, and Gray considering the suggestion.
“I don’t feel as if Fullflight Game Farm is doing anything it shouldn’t be doing,” Gray was quoted as saying at the 2005 meeting.
At the time, tests of the dirt samples also confirmed the presence of fecal coliform bacteria and E. coli, adding to residents’ concerns.
Resident Helen Skiathitis said having so many birds right on the property line has led to a “poor quality of life” for those living at Bernardston Country Estates. She said residents are constantly washing their vehicles, wiping dirt and dust from their properties, and killing flies in their homes. She showed the board photos of dust throughout the neighborhood.
Crochier said the town plans to install two PurpleAir sensors, allowing the town to track air quality and give residents a chance to see real-time data about pollution in the air.
A lawyer with the Massachusetts Health Officers Association plans to meet with the Board of Health later this month to discuss the board’s options and what can be done about residents’ concerns. Killeen said a date has not yet been finalized, but the meeting is likely to be held on Oct. 20 or Oct. 21.
“They are going to come train us, the Board of Health, in the ways that we can work with the person who owns the farm,” Killeen said. “We also are legally able to determine what will be acceptable and not acceptable.”
When reached by phone after Tuesday’s meeting, a representative for Fullflight Game Farm declined to comment, then hung up.