Community reacts to idea for mobile meat facility

By MICHEL ELBEN
Staff Reporter

LEONARDTOWN, Md. — It has been a two-year process for the Mechanicsville, Md. community and still the St. Mary’s County commissioners are able to fill the room with more than 100 people, all wondering what will become of a proposed “mobile meat processing facility.”
After three and a half hours of testimony, Board of Appeals Chairman George Allan Hayden moved to extend the hearing to another day.
Another session is scheduled at the St. Mary’s County Board of Appeals Chesapeake Building in Leonardtown, Md. on Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the main meeting room.
Johnny Knott of Hollywood, Md. wants to process three to four cows per week on his 30-acre farm in Mechanicsville.
He has two fixed trailers and one mobile unit.
“They will be self-contained and state of the art,” Knott testified.
Lucille Walker, a community representative from Farm Resource Strategies in Upper Marlboro, Md. and one of Knott’s spokespersons, said, “the mobile unit is in direct response to the community’s needs.”
Forty-five citizens signed up to testify for or against the mobile unit.
The Board of Appeals allows each citizen five minutes to speak unless they find the citizen to be repetitive.
Attorney Michael Nagy represented some of the 72 homes surrounding the Knott Farm and Attorney Chris Longmore represented the Knott family.
Yvonne Chaillet, zoning administrator for the county’s Department of Land Use and Growth Management found that the standards for granting a conditional use had been met and the staff recommended approval.
All that needs to be done she said is “the Board of Appeals needs to grant the conditional use.”
Chaillet said Knott had met the standards for granting conditional use including the standards of the district in which it is to be located and standards applicable to that use.
Conditional use also provides that the operation will not be detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, convenience, morals, order or general welfare.
Knott said the meat would be aged 18 to 24 days; the meat is cut, and then stored on his farm.
A USDA inspector would oversee the entire process.
“It’s not detrimental,” he said.
The property is currently 800 feet from Reeves Road.
The access road is currently used to transport feed to the farm for Knott’s cows, Chaillet said.
Adequate measures are being taken for traffic congestion, she said, and those measures were not contrary to the county’s Comprehensive Plan. Knott said he plans to work four days a week with the project, two days on farm and two days on the mobile station.
Chaillet said this will not be “injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in the immediate vicinity and will not diminish property.”
“A mobile slaughterhouse is not a ‘normal’ ag use. It’s not classified as a ‘minor ag activity or a common use,” said William Hamel, a neighbor to Knott’s Mechanicsville farm.
“It’s a Type 1 ag industry major use and that tells you it has the impacts of a major industrial zone.”
Hamel said the most disconcerting issue to the neighborhood was the waste produced by the facility.
Knott had originally proposed a slaughterhouse on the Reeves Road property, but it was derailed in an earlier hearing because slaughterhouses have to have direct access to a main road and the farm did not.
Several local farmers, like Joe Wood, testified that they travel up to four hours round trip to get their animals slaughtered, at substantial cost to them.
Under the proposal, Knott’s mobile unit would go to the farmer, slaughter the animal on-site, and come back to the Knott Farm.
The animal would be cured, cut, and packaged under a USDA label with the supervision of an agency inspector.
“This is an incredible opportunity for St. Mary’s County to nurture an industry,” said John Parlett, chairman of the county’s Agriculture, Seafood and Forestry Board.