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By Aloma Dew
 Editor's Note: Kentucky organizer Aloma Dew had heard of the "Tours de Sprawl" being hosted by the Sierra Club's Challenge to Sprawl Campaign, in which decision-makers and media were taken by van to see examples of good and bad growth. She now hosts an annual "Tour de Stench," in which people are taken in vans to see...well, she takes thorough notes, so we'll let her tell the story of the first tour, in 2000.
The Cumberland Chapter's first Kentucky Tour de Stench was a success! It was a clear day with a high of 80 and a moderate breeze. The wind kept down flies and the wind direction mitigated the odors, but we still got some good whiffs of chicken manure!
We had 35 participants, including reporters, local decision-makers and people who work on fighting chicken CAFOs - concentrated animal feeding operations. We moved in a convoy of two vans and several cars and covered 200 miles and three counties.
Stop #1: The tour began with a gathering and speeches at the Riverfront Park on the Green River in Calhoun. This is the river that drains the largest watershed in Kentucky.
Stop #2: We traveled to New Salem Primitive Baptist Cemetery, which overlooks 25 chicken houses and Bernadine Edwards' house. Down at Bernadine's neat frame house, there were protest signs in the front yard and two rubber chickens hanging from a tree. This was an excellent photo-op for the media, especially with Bernadine's granddaughter sitting in the swing with chicken houses behind her.
We drove by various Tyson Foods facilities - hatchery, processing plant, rendering plant, freezer facility and grain storage. We saw stockpiles of manure and gagged at the odor, which was bad enough to justify the name of the tour.
Stop #3: Next was the home of Norma Caine, surrounded by 24 Tyson houses and numerous piles of manure and litter. Norma lives in a floodplain and has problems with odor, mice, flies, rats - and her family's health.
Stop #4: It was time for lunch in the shade on the lawn at Emsberry Methodist Church. The Sierra Club provided chips, fruit, granola bars/Rice Krispy Treats and soft drinks. Volunteers pitched in to make sandwiches. (Note to self: Next time plan more potty stops. This was the only one, and it meant we also had to impose on victims whose homes we visited.)
Stop #5: Next we visited Faye Lear's home, where a 14-foot-deep lake has only four feet left in it due to being filled in with sediment from construction of a brooder facility built behind her home. She had pictures of her house and car covered with flies. She said the flies and rodents are so bad, the odor permeates everything inside her home and her family can hardly be outside.
Stop #6: We made a brief stop near a school where the children often vomit from odors from a complex of chicken houses nearby. They have written letters to their magistrates and to the regional air-quality office pleading for help.
Stop #7: Next was Suthard's Church overlooking a 24-house chicken facility.
Stop #8: Our last stop was on Fiddlebow Road where we visited with Linda Moon and her parents, the McGregors. Mouse infestations occur here each time a nearby CAFO breeder house is emptied. Hundreds and thousands of starving mice invade homes in the area. Linda caught 80 mice in a two-day period and said they nibbled on her son's ankle, crawled over everything, climbed up her side while she sat watching TV and devoured any food in bags or boxes, such as cereal. She would get up repeatedly at night to check the children's beds for mice. Another neighbor found mouse droppings each time she checked her baby's crib. Mr. McGregor, who runs a small, neat peach and apple orchard and gift shop said, "No one should have to live this way."
See a more detailed version of Aloma Dew's "Tour de Stench"
Photo of Barbara Thomas, with McLean COuntry Citizens Against Factory Farms, speaking at a cemetery overlooking a chicken factory along the Tour de Stench courtesy Aloma Dew
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