DeCoster imperils egg firm permit

PITTSFIELD – Because Austin “Jack” DeCoster was omitted as a principal on its state permit application, Ohio’s largest egg producer likely will have its permit to operate revoked.

This would affect approximately 8.5 million birds on 12 farms owned by Ohio Fresh Eggs.

Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Fred L. Daily said Monday that OFE was required to identify those who control farm management on state permits

“OFE did not disclose that arrangements had been made for control by [DeCoster], and that would have triggered a background check for an environmental noncompliance history,” Daily said.

In a prepared statement, OFE company spokesman Harry Palmer said DeCoster has no management role and only is considered a person who could provide financial assistance if asked.

According to Daily, DeCoster lent OFE a significant sum of money to purchase egg farms in Ohio.

Efforts Monday to reach DeCoster through Quality Egg of New England and his attorney, Kim O’Brien, were unsuccessful.

If DeCoster’s involvement had been disclosed, it would have revealed a substantial history of noncompliance in Maine, Ohio and Iowa. In the past, DeCoster was labeled a “habitual violator” of Iowa’s environmental laws after the state sued him five times for water pollution and waste violations at his hog lots.

DeCoster was once the world’s largest producer of brown eggs in the nation – with massive egg operations in Maine – and is still considered one of the country’s top 25 pork producers.

But along the way, he gained a reputation for flouting labor and pollution laws.

Five of DeCoster’s eight farms in Maine have been sold off over the past decade. He now operates as Quality Egg of New England LLC but has a deep history of violations.

In 1996, DeCoster was fined $3.6 million for federal health and safety violations at one egg farm near Turner, Maine.

Then-U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich called conditions at the farm – as many as 12 people to a trailer with overflowing trash and toilets, a lack of shower and laundry facilities and exposure to live electrical parts – “as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop we have seen.” DeCoster later settled the case for $2 million.

In 2002, DeCoster Farms agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million to 11 Mexican women who claimed they were raped by supervisors at company plants in northern Iowa.

DeCoster also ran into legal problems by not paying his Maine egg farm employees overtime. In 1999, a case involving up to 3,000 workers and a total of $5 million in payments was settled.

Meanwhile, DeCoster is caught up in a Maine civil lawsuit filed by residents nearby his three farms who claim that odors and flies coming from the farm have made them hostages in their own homes.

In early 2004, a group of 25 people filed the suit in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn against DeCoster and the three businesses that now make up his egg operations.

The neighbors, who live within a mile of the Plains Hill Road farm, say the stench and insects diminish the value of their properties and make it impossible to enjoy their decks, porches and pools in the spring and summer.