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Allen Harim won't use Millsboro facility to process chickens

The Allen Harim company says it is scratching plans to transform the former Vlasic pickle plant in Millsboro into a large-scale poultry processing center.

The company will instead use the facility as a warehouse and storage location.

In a statement, Allen Harim CEO Steve Evans said, ““Our company has a strategic plan that guides us in every decision we make, and we have concluded that our best course of action in Millsboro is to not process live chickens.”

Evans adds the company will look to lease the space in the future.

Neighbors who'd opposed the plant, citing studies that showed health and pollution concerns, were surprised but happy to hear the news.

 

"I think it was a pet project of the state of Delaware and the governor, something to do with an abandoned plant, but we don't think they put very much into what the effects were," says Jay Meyer of Protecting Our Indian River. "And what we ended up doing was, I think we pointed out a lot of stuff to 'em that -- hey, this is not the place."

Meyer's group had tried and failed to block the plant by filing an appeal in state Superior Court last year, seeking to overturn a ruling by DNREC that approved the brownfield remediation plan from Allen Harim. That decision was upheld and a second lawsuit was dismissed.

And in July, University of Maryland researchers released a report on the potential health impacts of what a planned Allen Harim poultry plant in Millsboro would be.

The research stitched together various studies, including groundwater sampling data near the Allen Harim site that detected elevated levels of chloroform and other potentially hazardous substances.

 

Meyer says the assessment "basically said, how in the heck can you even consider putting something of this magnitude right in the middle of a community where there are two elementary schools, neighbors ... across the road from where they planned to have this site?"

 

Meyer says he was "elated" to hear the poultry company had changed its mind about building what he calls a "slaughterhouse" in the old pickle plant, though he hasn't heard more about why they chose to back away from that plan. The South Korean-owned company had announced plans in April 2014 to acquire the former Pinnacle Foods Vlasic processing plant.

Meyer hopes the state can bring manufacturing business to the site instead, to help employ local high school graduates.

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