Chicken attack on America.

[Matthew X]

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)."
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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".