A Pilgrim’s Pride employee unloads a chicken truck at the chicken processing plant in downtown Chattanooga.Pilgrim’s Pride won’t be flying the coop anytime soon, company officials said, despite a new development plan that calls for the poultry plant’s removal from Chattanooga’s Southside.
The new 20-year proposal calls for the chickens to cross the road and not come back, though planners want to find a compromise solution to save the company’s 1,370 Chattanooga workers.
Architect David Hudson called the plant “the biggest impediment to development in that area,” because of the pungent bouquet that residents say can rival a rotten egg on bad days.
Local environmental officials acknowledged that there have been some ruffled feathers over the plant’s fowl odor, but ultimately there’s no legal limit for a nontoxic stench, said Amber Boles, a spokeswoman for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau.
The plant fully complies with all pollution regulations and has added extra measures to mitigate the smell in recent years, though it is not legally required to do so, Boles said.