Thursday, January 14, 2010
Feds: No new violations at New Square poultry plant
In the end, it became a wild poultry chase.
Two federal agents drove to the Hasidic Jewish community Wednesday and inspected the village's closed poultry slaughterhouse after some opponents claimed the facility was butchering chickens against a federal judge's closure order.
The judge ordered the plant shut down in late December, citing a public risk due to unsanitary conditions and the chickens were not being inspected before going to market. Operators want to build a larger slaughterhouse in the same area off Route 45.
On Wednesday, the plant remained closed and inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn't find any violations of the federal court order closing down the facility.
The plant accepted frozen processed chickens for storage, authorities said.
The USDA inspectors did not issue the operator any violation notices. The inspectors confirmed there were no problems or violations but referred all comments to the agency in Washington.
Deputy village Mayor Israel Spitzer said the operators and village cooperated with the inspectors after false information was disseminated.
"All that was done was the storage of frozen processed chicken, which were sealed in enclosed cases waiting to be transferred to the retail store," Spitzer said. "There is no processing being done on the premises."
Concern about the plant started Wednesday morning when an e-mail on a Rockland list serve was circulated describing a neighbor seeing five masked men dressed in white unloading boxes wrapped in plastic from an 18-wheel truck. The neighbor drove up to the plant, located along a narrow dirt road on the New Square-New Hempstead border.
She got an affirmative answer when she asked another man if the facility was accepting a delivery of chickens. Her observations went out on the list serve and led slaughterhouse opponents to contact the USDA, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the judge's office, and county government officials.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100114/NEWS03/1140373/-1/newsfront/Feds--No-new-violations-at-New-Square-poultry-plant
Two federal agents drove to the Hasidic Jewish community Wednesday and inspected the village's closed poultry slaughterhouse after some opponents claimed the facility was butchering chickens against a federal judge's closure order.
The judge ordered the plant shut down in late December, citing a public risk due to unsanitary conditions and the chickens were not being inspected before going to market. Operators want to build a larger slaughterhouse in the same area off Route 45.
On Wednesday, the plant remained closed and inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn't find any violations of the federal court order closing down the facility.
The plant accepted frozen processed chickens for storage, authorities said.
The USDA inspectors did not issue the operator any violation notices. The inspectors confirmed there were no problems or violations but referred all comments to the agency in Washington.
Deputy village Mayor Israel Spitzer said the operators and village cooperated with the inspectors after false information was disseminated.
"All that was done was the storage of frozen processed chicken, which were sealed in enclosed cases waiting to be transferred to the retail store," Spitzer said. "There is no processing being done on the premises."
Concern about the plant started Wednesday morning when an e-mail on a Rockland list serve was circulated describing a neighbor seeing five masked men dressed in white unloading boxes wrapped in plastic from an 18-wheel truck. The neighbor drove up to the plant, located along a narrow dirt road on the New Square-New Hempstead border.
She got an affirmative answer when she asked another man if the facility was accepting a delivery of chickens. Her observations went out on the list serve and led slaughterhouse opponents to contact the USDA, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the judge's office, and county government officials.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100114/NEWS03/1140373/-1/newsfront/Feds--No-new-violations-at-New-Square-poultry-plant
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