Between 350 people (prefecture) and 400 (organizers) demonstrated on Saturday against an intensive breeding project to accommodate 117,600 chickens, authorized by the prefecture despite an unfavorable opinion from the commissioner of inquiry.
About 400 people mobilized this Saturday in Steenwerck (North) against an intensive breeding project with a capacity of nearly 120,000 chickens.
21 chickens per m²
“This project will create nuisances for local residents, with a school 300 meters from the future henhouse, increase road traffic, obviously not to mention environmental damage, soil and water pollution, and participate in global warming” , lists Sébastien Faureau, president of the local association Flaner at the initiative of the event. “Of course, it also poses problems for human health and animal suffering, with 21 chickens per square meter”.
The procession joined in particular local elected officials and the ecologist MEP Karima Delli, head of the union list of the left in the next regional elections, with representatives of the other components of the list.
This poultry farming project, led by SARL Warembourg et fils, a subcontractor of the Belgian company Leievoeders, provides for the installation of poultry in two buildings of 2,800 m² each and the creation of a borehole 70 m deep , according to the public inquiry report.
The operators want to extend and enlarge “a previous activity interrupted by a fire” in 2018, which then included 20,000 poultry.
Prefectural fire despite unfavorable opinions
The municipal councils of Steenwerck and Sailly-sur-la-Lys have issued unfavorable opinions.
The North Prefecture, which signed an environmental authorization decree on March 25, stressed that the project was the subject of a “favorable opinion from CODERST (Departmental Council for the Environment and Health Risks and technologies) on February 16, 2021 ”.
“To respond to the public’s comments, […] additional measures were prescribed in the decree “, such as a noise study, or supervision of the spreading of livestock effluent, then specified the prefecture, committing to” conduct an inspection in the months following the commissioning of this installation ”.
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