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ELDORA, N.C. — It was sunny last week. Good weather for moving chicken manure. Tons of it, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.

On Chilton Road, in the Eldora community of Surry County, big trucks hauled a mound of black-cake manure that had grown so large and had lain on the edge of Johnny Simmons’ industrial-style farm for so long that the trucks took several days to haul it away.

As of January, Simmons had 12 chicken houses, each capable of holding as many as 25,000 chickens. And he was building more. For about a year, the manure had sat largely exposed, covered only by a tarp but not all the time, neighbors here said. At this farm, Tyson Foods Inc. owns the chickens.

A local farmer – Simmons – provides the housing and labor, and deals with the waste. Neighbors get stuck with the stench.

Homeowners who moved here long before the massive farm was installed said they have been left to grapple with the unsettling notion that all they have worked for has been largely taken away. As tensions between homeowners and Simmons fester, Tyson stays behind a stone wall.

Read full story: The Winston-Salem Journal