Tyson chicken plant: Rejected in Kansas, welcomed in Tennessee

HUMBOLDT, Tenn. – Not every town wants a chicken plant.

In Tonganoxie, Kansas, residents showed their distaste for a Tyson Foods Inc. chicken plant last year by posting "No Tyson in Tongie" signs in yards and mailing pictures of dead chickens to a county official. Among their concerns were water pollution, odor, infrastructure costs and animal cruelty. When local officials in response revoked hundreds of millions of dollars to support the Tyson project, Tyson advanced its plans for a $300 million plant in Humboldt, a West Tennessee town located in Gibson County.

Gibson County Economic Development Director Kingsley Brock said he and other local officials were aware of the Kansas pushback and vetted Arkansas-based Tyson accordingly. Once they decided to pursue the chicken plant and its 1,500 jobs, they assured the Tyson officials their community was unlikely to follow Tonganoxie’s path.

“You are not going to get that same reaction in Humboldt,” Brock said. “We are going to want the jobs and need the jobs.”

Humboldt faces a different economic reality than Tonganoxie, where per capita income is 70 percent higher and the city’s population has grown nearly 7 percent since 2010. In Humboldt, an 8,000-person community, the population is declining and just half of the working-age residents participate in the labor force. Area farmers welcome the chance to expand their crop base while residents emphasize the need for full-time job opportunities. Despite the opposition the company received in Kansas, Tennessee officials praise Tyson as the long-needed catalyst that could ignite the county’s economy.

“It’s tremendous,” Brock said. “It's going to trickle all over the place."

Brock said developers are looking at creating apartments, new restaurants are expected, along with new retail, and there is potential for another hotel.

“You can’t overstate what that is going to do for our local economy,” Gibson County Mayor Tom Witherspoon said of Tyson. “That helps everybody from car salesmen to cake bakers to shoe salesmen and everybody in between... That is going to be a tide that lifts all ships."

When companies leave

Driving through Gibson County in a black pickup truck, Witherspoon points to the empty plants that dot the community he was raised in. There’s the Kellwood Company that manufactured clothes, where his mother and father once worked, the Emerson Motor Co., Brown Shoe Company, Plastech Corp. — each employed hundreds of people before they shut down.

In 2011, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant where 1,900 people worked in nearby Obion County closed, a major blow for the region. The next year, American Ordnance moved operations away from the Milan Army Ammunition Plant, laying off 600 workers.

“It was just one piece of bad news after another, to the point where that’s what you came to expect,” Witherspoon said. “As a community, we got used to the fact that somebody else was going to get the big project.”

Former factory supervisors turned to any job they could find, hanging sheet rock or mowing yards, stitching together part-time work and forgoing benefits, Witherspoon said. The unemployment rate has narrowed since the Great Recession from more than 15 percent to 3.8 percent, but Witherspoon said that number masks the shift to underemployment that weighs on the community.

Government officials tried to pitch companies on a 500-acre corn field, owned by Gibson County since 1998, but there was no access road to take them through the site. Power lines ran through the property, meaning immediate costs and a longer timeline for any company willing to move there.

“It is hard to take a Japanese businessman to a corn field and say, ‘Can you imagine your plant being here?’ It is a tough sell,” Witherspoon said. “We didn’t have a way to really show the park the way it needed to be shown.”

When rural Tennessee counties were often overlooked for company relocations or expansions, state economic officials decided to try a new strategy: make the site ready for development before it was chosen. That meant investing in water, sewer, fiber optics and more, depending on the site’s needs, Brock said.

With a $350,000 grant from the Tennessee Valley Authority, two rural development grants totaling $900,000, and a $600,000 match from Gibson County, county officials built an entrance, an access road and a sign, extended water lines and moved electrical lines.

Witherspoon said he was not worried that the money spent could still fail to attract new businesses.

“My only fear at that point was we’d keep doing what we’d been doing,” Witherspoon said. “I knew what result that was getting us.”

Brock said given the assets of the Gibson County Industrial Site, including its size and proximity to rail and Interstate 40, he expected a company needing a few hundred employees to commit over the next two or three years. Tyson exceeded all expectations. It is the largest investment ever made in Gibson County, according to state officials.

"I knew we had something good. It was just a matter of time," Brock said. "It turned out we were at the right place at the right time."

Tyson said it was drawn to the available workforce in Gibson County, proximity to grain and available infrastructure. Plant workers, with wages ranging from $13 to $20, plus benefits, will produce fresh tray pack chicken for retail customers. Many management and administrative jobs also will be offered.

As part of the deal, Tyson has been awarded $18 million in incentives through the state's FastTrack grants that will go towards additional infrastructure, and the county has offered a tax abatement deal estimated to total $16 million over the next 20 years.

The Tyson deal will boost both the manufacturing and agricultural sector, providing farmers with an additional income stream, both through chicken and grain demand, Witherspoon said. The company plans to contract with nearly 80 farmers.

“We have a lot of small and younger farmers,” Witherspoon said. “Being able to add or grow operations to their business models will allow them to stay on the farm full-time, instead of having to go to town for a job.”

Todd Littleton, a third-generation farmer in Gibson County and chairman of the Gibson Farm Bureau, is considering raising chickens for Tyson and would build two chicken houses on his farm to hold them. He grows corn, wheat and soybeans on 1,500 acres in Kenton, Tenn.

"I'm looking at chickens to just be a supplemental income," Littleton, 35, said. "It’s a steady income, not tied to a commodity market. Our commodity prices have been low the last two or three years. Cash flows are tight, and I'm just looking at it as another source of income."

Kansas residents reject Tyson

In Tonganoxie, a town of about 5,000 people, one of the biggest complaints about the Tyson project was the infrastructure that would be needed to accommodate both the plant and what was expected to be an influx of new residents taking jobs there. Roads would need upgrades to support the heavy trucks, the sewer system would need to be extended and schools could be overwhelmed, residents said. The county had planned to issue $500 million in industrial bond revenue to support the facility, along with $7 million for utilities and another $1 million for sewer lines.

Residents also objected to perceived secrecy surrounding the project prior to the announcement and raised concerns about smells associated with chicken farms, possible exposure to ammonia and the potential for water pollution. The debate came to a head at a crowded town hall meeting in September, drawing about 2,000 people, according to media reports.

“The infrastructure of Tonganoxie would be changed forever from the small, quiet town it is,” said Tonganoxie resident and freight conductor Brady Brown. He said he also took issue with Tyson’s track record on water pollution.

Tyson, which produces beef, chicken and pork, released more than 20 million pounds of toxic chemicals into U.S. waterways in 2014, more than any other agricultural company, according to a 2016 report from Environment America Research & Policy Center.

Tyson spokesman Worth Sparkman disputed the report as inaccurate and misleading. Water from plants is returned to streams after it is treated by government-regulated systems and most farmers raising animals are required to follow nutrient management plans, he said.

In 2003, chicken manure contaminated drinking water sources in Tulsa, Okla., spurring a $7.5 million settlement from Tyson and other chicken companies. That same year, the company pleaded guilty to 20 felony violations of the Clean Water Act at a chicken plant in Missouri for illegally discharging untreated wastewater into a river tributary. The company paid $7.5 million in fines.

Tyson was among chicken companies sued in 2005 for polluting the Illinois River with chicken waste. In 2015, the company settled a case in Missouri for chemical releases that killed more than 100,000 fish in a Missouri creek.

In the three most recent years reported, Tyson exceeded wastewater permits 319 times and had 37 reportable chemical spills, according to Tyson's sustainability report.

"Water is a precious natural resource and we take the protection of that resource very seriously," Sparkman said. "Unfortunately, in a company with 122,000 employees, accidents sometimes happen. When they do, we do everything within our power to make the situation right, which in some cases includes stream bank restoration projects and collaboration with regional conservation groups.”

Tyson has also been sued for worker safety issues. In June 2017, two Tyson workers were injured by ammonia at a plant in Hutchinson, Kansas. In 2013, Tyson paid nearly $4 million related to eight anhydrous ammonia-related incidents in a five-year period, including a fatality, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Tyson has since launched a project in nine plants to improve workplace safety practices and in 2016, the company reduced its incident rate by nearly 20 percent, Sparkman said.

"Of course, our aspiration is for zero workplace injuries and we’ve taken strides in recent years to address key safety issues," Sparkman said.

Witherspoon said local officials brought up these issues with Tyson leaders from the onset of discussions. With Obion County’s Tyson plant just 45 miles away, Witherspoon said he reached out to the county mayor, who reassured him that Tyson was an ideal corporate citizen.

“They have been a blessing to Obion County and surrounding counties with their employment," Obion County Mayor Benny McGuire said. "They are probably the most community-minded industry that you could have in your county."

Tyson employs 1,000 people in Obion County's Union City and is adding 300 more jobs as part of an $84 million expansion. The company's presence has sustained Obion County’s tax base, paying for schools and roads, McGuire said. He has been watching young people move away from the region to pursue job opportunities in Middle Tennessee and is grateful for the Tyson jobs, especially in the wake of Goodyear's closure.

Regarding water concerns, Witherspoon says he has full confidence in the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to regulate the chicken plant and contributing farms. But, under new legislation signed into law in February, chicken farmers raising poultry for Tyson will no longer be required to obtain TDEC permits.

TDEC spokeswoman Kim Schofinski said the state can still enforce against water quality violations, mostly identified through complaint investigations or TDEC's routine sampling.

"Our investigative process, as well as routine water quality monitoring, can potentially identify a link between an impact and a specific activity or source," she said in an emailed statement.

Without permits, chicken farmers will no longer have to issue waste management plans describing how much chicken waste will be produced and when and where their chicken manure will be applied, said Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Sierra Club's Tennessee chapter.

"What happened in the past two years is we basically deregulated chicken farming in Tennessee," Banbury said. "We are not going to know where these operations are in most cases, let alone, there is no requirement they have these nutrient management plans. We believe that could lead to pretty heavy impacts on streams in West Tennessee."

Both processing plants and the area chicken farms contribute to water pollution in the form of nitrates that can spur algal blooms, harming waterways, said John Rumpler, author of the Environment America report

"In these concentrated operations, inherently there is too much manure and some of it's going to end up in the water," Rumpler said.

Sparkman, Tyson's spokesman, said all chicken farmers will be encouraged to develop a nutrient management plan based on guidance from the University of Tennessee.

Brock said he also had questions about issues raised in Tonganoxie. After site visits to the Union City plant, contributing farms and the Arkansas headquarters, he was impressed with operations and felt reassured about smells and working conditions.

“The stigma is, it’s a dirty business,” Brock said. “We did our due diligence to find out that a lot of that is simply not true.”

McGuire said there have been no issues related to water quality from Tyson farms in Obion County and that smells from chicken houses have not been a problem.

"A chicken house has a smell to it, they always do," McGuire said. "But sometimes smell means money to some people. That is just the way it is. I have very few complaints."

Littleton said he does not expect chicken odor to be an issue in the rural parts of Gibson County where chickens will be raised.

"Everyone around here was either raised on the farm or had family members who farm," he said. "They understand that’s just part of feeding this world."

Littleton also expects farmers to follow waste guidelines that protect local water sources. Farmers don't want to waste the fertilizing source and they also depend on the land and water around them for their livelihood, he said. He supported the recent legislation eliminating permits.

"Regulations are a huge burden for us," Littleton said. "We want a clean environment. We live here just like everyone else. I think that gets misconstrued lots of times in the public. People don’t understand we make our living with our environment, so why wouldn’t we want it as safe and clean as it can be?"

Having watched what unfolded in Kansas, Witherspoon said local officials sought to engage the community and involve them in the process early on. They held meetings with area farmers and talked with community leaders about the Tyson prospect ahead of the announcement, made in November, and the project has been well-received by farmers and the business community.

"We talked with dozens of people — not just community leaders — about the project early in the process leading up to our announcement, and listened to their feedback," Doug Ramsey, Tyson's group president of poultry, said. "This was a good approach because it made us partners with more than the leaders there; it made us partners with the community as a whole.”

Any pushback Witherspoon said he has received has been from a handful of residents who fear the jobs will attract an influx of immigrants to the area, a concern he brushes off.

"Anybody who wants to come to Gibson County, get here legally, get up and go to work everyday, pay their bills, provide for their families and obey our laws and keep their yard picked up, they are welcome," he said.

Robert Holland was the only one of three Leavenworth County Commissioners in Kansas to vote against rescinding the $500 million in revenue bonds that would have gone toward the Tyson plant proposed in Tonganoxie. He said he wished those opposing the plant would have sat down with county officials to learn more about what the plant would entail. He credits social media campaigns with influencing residents.

“I think they got misled on some of the issues,” Holland said. “It was a very good deal for Leavenworth County. It would have given us jobs in our community.”

Residents would have seen incomes rise and benefits improve if they had been able to take a Tyson job, he said. He fears now that other companies will shy away from Tonganoxie given the backlash Tyson encountered.

“It’s going to be very difficult for us to get any other businesses to come into Leavenworth County,” he said.

In Gibson County in Tennessee, officials are optimistic the plant will trigger new business creation and help them lure more companies to the area and to the industrial site, once Tyson is established.

"Things are going to get better for Gibson County," Witherspoon said. "We've been beat on and picked on and on up. It's time for us to have a success story and claw our way back. If it takes growing chickens to do it, then so be it. It's just step one in the right direction."

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.