"Poultry Farmers Sniff At Proposed Regs"

"TIMBERVILLE, Va. — The barn where David Hughes raises chicks on his Shenandoah Valley turkey farm smells mostly like the wood shavings he spreads across the floor for bedding. And that may be an important clue in a farm regulation battle that's about to come to a head 118 miles to the east in the nation's capital.

What his turkey house doesn't smell like is ammonia, which would be a telltale sign of a barn that's not well-ventilated. It's one airborne chemical that farmers like Hughes may soon need to track under a law usually associated with toxic waste sites.

'It disperses so fast,' said Hughes, whose farm sits on a back road along the north fork of the Shenandoah River and near the tiny New Market Airport, used for private airplanes and skydiving. 'I guess that's my closest neighbor, an airport, and no one complains from there about anything — dust, feathers.' "

Marc Heller reports for Greenwire March 6, 2018.