Repeat Violators of Laws Protecting Public Health and Animal Welfare are Allowed to Continue Producing Harmful Animal Products.

Austin “Jack” DeCoster is the CEO of the Wright County Egg, the farm responsible for the recent recall of more than 500 million eggs. But the recall isn’t the first time he has come under fire. A 2010 ABC News article exposes DeCoster’s long record of legal and ethical violations.

In addition to the thousands of people sickened by his eggs (which the Center for Disease Control estimates may be as high as 45,000), he has paid millions of dollars in fines and restitutions for violations of food safety, worker safety, immigration, sexual harassment, animal cruelty, and water pollution laws. These violations span at least four states- Maine, Maryland, New York, and Iowa. DeCoster has been forced to pay millions of dollars in fines and was named a “habitual violator” by Iowa’s attorney general.

The situations at Wright County Egg are typical of DeCoster’s carelessness. Workers say that for at least 10 years, the farm has failed to control poisonous ammonia levels, has allowed dead chickens to remain in cages for weeks with live chickens, and has done nothing to prevent infestations by rodents.

While these revelations are shocking, they are nothing new. DeCoster’s lawyer admitted that “A henhouse is not a sterile environment […] it can't be. The notion that eggs will ever be free of salmonella is ludicrous.” Darrel Trampel, a poultry veterinarian at Iowa State University, confirms that maggots, dead chickens, and ammonia are commonplace in animal farms.

Investigations have revealed that DeCoster's feed mill, Quality Egg, is the likely source of the salmonella. The feed mill supplied feed for both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, both companies named in the recall. Probably most disturbing is that the feed mill had not been inspected in years as the company claimed an exemption for farmers who produce feed for their own livestock.

DeCoster's hen houses had also not been inspected and the reason given was that there was a "full-time USDA inspector on site." However, that inspector was a "grader" who could not inspect for salmonella and was not even permitted to walk through the hen houses. The FDA also had NO inspection history with the farm. A recent FDA inspection report of DeCoster's hen houses revealed gross violations of health and safety violations, including manure pits 4 to 8 feet high located beneath the hen-laying operation, outside access doors that were pushed open by manure, thus allowing access for rodents and wildlife and domesticated animals, unbaited rodent burrows, live mice, live and dead flies, and live and dead maggots.

An April 2010 Office of the Inspector General Report indicated that 56% of food facilities registered with the FDA have gone without inspection for 5 years or more.

With all of this, is it any surprise that hundreds of millions of pounds of meat have been recalled in the past decade, in addition to over half a billion eggs in 2010 alone?

Nearly Two Decades of Litigation
for Former Egg Farmer

Anton Pohlmann's former Ohio business, Buckeye Egg Farms (now Ohio Fresh Eggs - a company with Austin "Jack" DeCoster as it's primary investor - see below) earned a national reputation for environmental irresponsibility. During the time Buckeye Egg Farms was in operation, Pohlmann had 9 contempt of court charges for failure to honor the terms of lawsuits filed by the Ohio State's Attorney's Office. Ohio's attorney general at that time referred to the company as "the most recalcitrant corporate polluter" her office had seen. From the early 1980s to 2002 when the farm was taken over by the state, litigation was nearly non-stop. The Ohio Department of Agriculture even had to create a new department simply to address the volume of issues related to Buckeye Farms.

Neighbors of the farm who experienced flies in "Biblical proportions" blamed the state for allowing the problems to continue for so long.

Pohlmann, also known as "The Chicken Hitler" had also been the top-egg producer in Europe, despite a string of pollution violations, as well as violations of German juvenile labor standards. In the early 1990s, Pohlman used an illegal drug to treat chickens with salmonella because the proper medication was too expensive. He also sprayed chickens that had mites with nicotine sulfate, causing a worker to become gravely ill and endangering the lives of over 900,000 hens. The investigation revealed that Pohlmann had removed the warning label indicating that the nicotine sulfate was a strong poison. Finally, Pohlman was convicted of cruelly killing 60,000 hens infected with salmonella by cutting off their food, water, and air conditioning. Pohlmann was banned from ever participating in any animal-related enterprise in Germany.

Buckeye Farms Becomes OHIO FRESH EGGS

Ohio Fresh Eggs is Ohio’s largest egg producer with 12 production facilities in Ohio ~ producing over 5 million eggs PER DAY.  One location alone houses 3 million laying chickens.

And yes, it is another company tied to Austin “Jack” DeCoster (of Wright County Egg named in the 2010 massive egg recall), his right-hand man John Glessner, and Orland Bethel, the owner of Hillandale Farms (also named in the 2010 massive recall) and who took the 5th during the September 2010 egg recall congressional hearing.

In November 2010, 288,000 eggs (24,000 dozen) from Ohio Fresh Eggs were recalled by Cal-Maine Foods who purchased the eggs in October and had them repackaged and distributed to various wholesalers and retailers. Cal-Maine issued the voluntary recall after being notified by the FDA that a routine test done at Ohio Fresh Eggs revealed salmonella.

Jack DeCoster is the largest investor in Ohio Fresh Eggs. He footed the bill for Orland Bethel and Don Hershey to purchase the farm, allegedly to avoid paying capital gains after selling his Iowa hog farms.  Bethel and Hershey, named as owners, contributed $10,000 each, compared to DeCoster’s $126 million.  Hershey was being repaid for money he put into repairing and rebuilding the facilities and Bethel’s Hillandale Farms would receive shipments of eggs from Ohio Fresh Eggs.

John Glessner, DeCoster’s longtime associate whose own company had multiple violations over several years and who paid fines and was sentenced to jail time (yet never had to serve any of it) for his part in supplying DeCoster with illegal immigrants, serves as Ohio Fresh Eggs’ director of operations.  In a 2008 Columbus Dispatch article, Hershey notes that Glessner runs the show and that Glessner and DeCoster have all the money in it.

Although Buckeye Farms’ record of violations was horrific, Ohio Fresh Eggs has had their share of problems as well. The state revoked the company's permits in 2007 when learning that DeCoster (named a habitual violator in Iowa) was the primary investor and had conveniently not been named as an owner on any of the permits and filing documents. DeCoster appealed and won.

Since receiving it’s operating permit in 2003, the company has received 57 “warnings” and “notices of deficiency from the state,” some as recent as April 2010, plus numerous complaints from area residents about fly and rodent infestations. In 2004, Mercy for Animals released shocking investigative video and photographs of cruel conditions in their facilities.  Yet, a representative of the Ohio Department of Agriculture said the company is watched closely and problems are quickly brought to their attention. In 2006, 4 million eggs from Ohio Fresh Eggs were barred from sale as they had been stored in a barn at room temperature for a lengthy amount of time. A spokesman for the company said the eggs were not intended for retail sale, but were being considered for sale as animal feed.

Warnings? Notices of deficiency?  What is really done about these problems?  Apparently only one violation required legal action and that involved egg wash water from their facility housing approximately 3 million chickens ending up in a creek. In 2009, for that violation, Ohio Fresh Eggs received 3 years of probation, a $150,000 fine, and was ordered to donate another $150,000 to environmental groups. Probably not that big of a bill to a company making millions annually.

Another Egg Giant in the Tangled Web

John Glessner, a long-time colleague of DeCoster's is named as the chief excecutive officer of Ohio Fresh Eggs and has also been associated with Hillandale Farms, and Orland Bethel, co-owner at both companies.

Glessner's history with DeCoster includes being sentenced to 4 months in prison (which he did not have to serve) and paying $300,000 in fines for supplying DeCoster with undocumented workers from Glessner's company, Iowa Ag.

Glessner also helped DeCoster build his Iowa egg conglomerate when DeCoster was prohibited from building any new confinement feeding operations. Glessner headed a shell company, started by DeCoster, to build mega-farm, Environ, which eventually became DeCoster's Wright County Egg (one of the company's involved in the recall).

And Glessner may also have involvement in DeCoster's feed mill, Quality Egg, which supplied the feed (believed to be the source of the salmonella) to both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms.

For more on the connections between DeCoster and these various other egg farms, see this recent article on Grist.com.

Dirty Dairy & Dirty Water

George Kasbergen's Spring Grove Dairy in Wisconsin was cited for 10 water pollution violations, including failure to report large manure spills.

Despite public opposition, Kasbergen went on to build Stone Ridge Dairy, the largest mega-dairy in Illionis. Bellflower County residents (where Stone Ridge Dairy is located) raised concerns about the property's 26-acre manure lagoon and the potential for mis-management or spills, particularly given Kasbergen's previous sanctions in Wisconsin. Residents filed a lawsuit to have Stone Ridge Dairy labeled a "public nuisance," but the lawsuit was dismissed.

In September 2010, Stone Ridge Dairy became the focus of an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency investigation regarding a 10-mile fish kill that destroyed over 40,000 fish and other aquatic life. Initial tests revealed the source of the kill was organic and most likely manure. Ag-related spills are the leading cause of fish kills in the U.S., and manure is responsible for 70-80% of those kills.