Mountaire Farms is seeking a state permit to expand operations at its Millsboro processing plant that would pave the way for 150,000 more chickens per week, bringing total production at the plant to more than 2 million chickens per week.

The company applied for a Coastal Zone Act permit in late May to construct a 5,300-square-foot addition to the processing area at its existing 6-acre facility on Route 24.

The addition would expand the picking room, the area where the centers are removed from chickens by machinery, said Mountaire spokesman Mike Tirrell.

The $14 million expansion includes the new room and equipment. The company will add 171 jobs once it is operational, Tirrell said. The expansion also requires upgrades to the facility's onsite wastewater treatment plant, which discharges treated wastewater on more than 900 acres of nearby farm fields through spray irrigation.

Tirrell said he expects the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to respond to the permit application before the end of summer 2017.

“We're in a waiting mode right now,” he said. “But I don't see any real impact that anybody will notice. It's a very small, incremental increase. And it's more jobs.”

The plant employs about 2,000 people and processes nearly 2 million broiler chickens weekly on two processing shifts. The proposed expansion would mark an 18 percent increase in production, the application states. Tirrell said while the expansion would allow processing of 360,000 extra chickens each week, the plan is to start with 150,000 additional birds weekly.

The expansion could affect air quality, according to the permit application. Increased emissions would be the result of using more equipment more frequently to process more birds.

The application states air emissions are expected to increase by 3 tons per year of natural gas burned in boilers to provide heat for scalding.

Mountaire is required to apply for a Coastal Zone Act permit because the plant and 35 percent of its irrigated fields fall within the coastal zone, an area identified for extra protections through a 1971 law. The zone runs about two miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, Inland Bays, Delaware Bay and Delaware River. The Coastal Zone Act, which state legislators currently are seeking to amend through House Bill 190, aims to protect Delaware's coastal areas from the adverse impacts of heavy industry.

DNREC officials said if and when Mountaire's application is deemed complete, additional notices will be issued regarding public hearings and public comment opportunities.

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