Purdue Farms, the largest operator in the poultry belt in Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, says it has an innovative new plan for dealing with the chicken manure that is blamed for seriously polluting the Chesapeake Bay and underground well water. Under the plan, praised by environmentalists, the company will build a new factory to collect and treat chicken litter — a phosphorus- and nitrogen-rich compound that includes chicken dropping and sawdust — to make fertilizer pellets for Midwestern farmers. But locals are less excited than enviros, worrying that the new plant will bring even more chicken doo-doo into an already stinky area.
