POTOMAC — A public meeting Tuesday night about a proposed hog barn 3 miles northeast of Potomac in northwestern Vermilion County offered new information, including the partners behind the project and the processes to environmentally safeguard it.
The project is a partnership of Vermilion County’s Parks family, owners of The Parks Companies in Oakwood, which will own the barn and provide day-to-day care; The Equity agricultural cooperative, which provides a bridge between pig and barn owners to help facilitate the production process; and Clark Farms Rossville.
The total cost of the new Parks Livestock swine-finishing barn, including the about-32,000-square-foot facility, equipment and hogs, is estimated at between $5 million and $6 million.
Officials said it will generate more than $12,000 annually in new tax revenue for Vermilion County, with a significant portion benefiting the Potomac school district. It will employ four people to care for the animals and additional employees for the milling and delivery of feed and transporting the hogs.
Other details revealed at the meeting, which was hosted by the Illinois Department of Agriculture at the request of the Vermilion County Board, were that the barn will sit on about 3 acres of land near County Road 840 E and is designed to house about 4,000 pigs with a concrete pit underneath to collect manure. It will feature solar panels to generate electricity on site as well as groundwater protections and an odor-control plan that includes controlled application of the manure.
Brad Beaver, chief of the state agriculture department’s bureau of environmental programs; Randy Kuker, production management director at The Equity; and Chris West, president of Frank and West Environmental Engineers in Springfield, which was hired by Parks Livestock to handle the permit and design of the project, gave testimony and answered questions, including from Carl Phillips, who has a farm near the proposed location.
County board member Mark Steinbaugh said the group did a great job of going through the information but asked if and how the land could be returned to crop production “in 30 to 50 years, when that facility is no longer in existence.”
Beaver said the state’s Livestock Management Facilities Act provides for a closing process.
West also discussed traffic patterns in the area, saying the new barn would bring an average of three feed and animal-transportation trucks per week to the area.
