Chicken kill leaves bitter aftertaste By Daniel Lewis, Regional Writer September 3 2002 When the diseased birds wouldn't burn as fast as they were being gassed or having their necks wrung, the alternative for Mangrove Mountain was the pits. There are two of them, lined with more than 100 shipping containers that are filled with the carcasses of about 1.5 million chickens. The pits must be monitored for at least 30 years - which the Auditor-General says is costing about $1 million a year. They are symbols of the fact that people are still paying for Australia's worst outbreak of exotic animal disease long after the last animal was destroyed. Newcastle disease struck the small Central Coast farming community's poultry industry in 1999. What happened to farmers like Shaun Rodger has helped the country understand how devastating a widespread outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease would be. The Productivity Commission looked at Mangrove Mountain and noted: "Although the disease was confined to one area it took three months to control, involved up to 5000 people working on eradication and is conservatively estimated to have cost governments around $22 million (excluding compensation)." advertisement The cost to the chicken meat industry has been put at $200 million and farmers are still furious over their compensation. From what he saw at Mangrove Mountain, Mr Rodger's assessment of foot-and-mouth is that "you wouldn't have a hope in hell of stopping it". Mr Rodger - whose family was reduced to accepting food parcels after the outbreak - is also chairman of the NSW Contract Poultry Group and represents most chicken farmers around Mangrove Mountain. They are still angry, he says, over the lack of consultation from government authorities as the outbreak was tackled. "You have got to use farmers. Nobody knows their plot of dirt better than the farmer. Farmers just felt isolated." Had their advice and help been accepted, the outbreak would have been controlled far more quickly and cheaply. Many locals also fear that the pits are not being monitored closely enough, Mr Rodger said. The destruction and disposal of seven million animals in Britain last year after a foot-and-mouth outbreak has thrown the spotlight back on carcass disposal. Britain's Environment Agency recorded about 50 cases of water pollution related to carcass burial, but there was no long-term contamination of drinking water. There were about 900 burial sites and 300 complaints about the smell. The burning of animals on spectacular pyres was seen as a public relations disaster that cost British tourism billions of dollars. The preferred method of carcass disposal in Australia is burial, although burning was tried first at Mangrove Mountain. Huge fires fuelled by 120,000 railway sleepers burnt 24 hours a day to destroy more than 500,000 birds, but could not keep up with the killing, says NSW Agriculture's Kevin Cooper, who managed the outbreak. The pits were built to the highest standard, well above the water table, and rigorous testing had revealed no problems. NSW Agriculture is now working with local government to identify sites across the state that could be safely used for future carcass burials. At Mangrove Mountain, the State Government still employs a community worker to help locals adjust. A Department of Community Services survey found that 69 per cent of people felt it would take at least two years to recover economically and emotionally. Its research identified continuing divisions between chicken farmers and others over issues such as restriction of movement during the emergency. The outbreak also sparked stigma, paranoia and conspiracy theories. Farmers' children were bullied and the case of the child who had a chicken sandwich unnecessarily confiscated when the school bus was stopped at a checkpoint has become bitter legend. Mr Rodger says the only good result was Mangrove Mountain was put on the map. When Sydneysiders discovered the beautiful rural property within an hour's drive, real estate prices rose, but "they're already complaining about the smell of chook manure".