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The owners of a halal butchery in Unity are scrambling to move forward with a long-planned expansion after town officials finally approved the project following lengthy deliberations to ensure it won’t contaminate water supplies.
The town’s Planning Board approved the expansion of Five Pillars Halal Butchery on July 30, after the proposal was first submitted in March and the project was awarded federal funding last year. Local officials included numerous requirements for its wastewater treatment, septic system, size, road access, setbacks, erosion and sediment control, odor management and other factors.
The owners, Kathryn Piper and Hussam Al-Rawi, had grown frustrated by what they argued were unnecessary delays in the town’s approval of the project, which they’d originally hoped would be complete by now.
As the only facility of its kind in Maine, Five Pillars is poised to meet growing demand for halal meat at businesses, schools and people across the Northeast. When it opens, the new slaughterhouse will be able to process an estimated 20 cattle and up to 60 sheep and goats weekly.
In an interview this week, Piper said they’re still figuring out the next steps for breaking ground on the 1,500-square-foot expansion, for which they have received $4.4 million in federal, state and private grants.
They now hope to get moving on the project this fall, so that a shell of the building can be erected in time for indoors work in the winter. But if they can’t get the shell up soon, Piper said, they could lose the winter season to work, setting back the project even further.
“After a seven-month delay and close to $100,000 if not more in fees to get through this development review process, we’re scrambling to get contractors lined back up,” Piper said this week. “We had them lined up before, and lost them, because this was extended. So now we’re scrambling to … get this project going before we lose the opportunity this year completely.”
Another concern is that their original cost estimates for the project were made before President Donald Trump’s trade war got underway. Now, they fear new tariffs for international shipments and growing labor costs could push the price up under a new building contract.
Local officials say the approval process took time because they wanted to ensure the facility’s waste wouldn’t affect the groundwater or contribute to ongoing water quality issues in Unity Pond, which can be contaminated by phosphorus that runs off from surrounding land.
“The main concern is the health of the lake,” Unity Code Enforcement Enforcer Dylan Lajoie said in June. “For this lake in particular, algae blooms are a known risk.”
The project will take place in a rural area with no public sewer system, and as proposed, it will dispose of waste in multiple ways. It will first collect the blood and other waste from the butchering process and have it removed from the site for disposal elsewhere, according to its application materials. It will then rinse out the processing area and send the wastewater to a series of tanks to filter out any effluent before sending that treated liquid into the ground.
The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has reviewed the project, and in October, it determined that Five Pillars’ plan meets the best management practices for the disposal of agricultural wastewater, according to a letter the agency sent the business.
