Rally planned ahead of Lancaster County Planning Commission vote on chicken farm

The vote to give the go ahead to a Costco chicken farm planned for an area southwest of Lincoln has been delayed twice now.

The Lancaster County Planning Commission fell one vote short of the five votes needed to approve the farm in their past two meetings.

In both those hearings, the entire nine person board wasn’t present.

At Wednesday’s meeting, every member will be present, and the planning commission expects to have a final answer.

They’ve heard hours of testimony in both support and opposition of the proposed farm.

Several concerns circle around the environmental effects from the thousands of chickens planned to be housed just 1 1/2 miles from neighboring homes.

"Does anybody want to ask them what the standards are," inquired Randy Ruppert of Nebraska Communities United, "that when we have every stream east of O’Neill that’s polluted from anywhere from category two to category five — which is the highest pollutant level that NDEQ can put on it?"

If approved, the farm will consist of four, 600 foot long buildings that could house upwards of 180,000 chickens.

The groups in opposition to the farms, called the Lancaster Hills Alliance, have planned a rally for this afternoon at 12:30 p.m. at the City-County Building in Lincoln, prior to the 1 p.m. meeting of the Lancaster County Planning Commission.

They want to hold the rally to allow people to hear one last time their reasoning for opposing the farm, as Wednesday’s meeting will not host public comment.