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The planned expansion of a family-owned halal butcher shop in Unity remains in limbo as the town has spent months reviewing the project to ensure that its waste won’t contaminate Unity Pond or the surrounding groundwater.
The owners of Five Pillars Halal Butchery, Kathryn Piper and Hussam Al-Rawi, had originally hoped to start building the 1,500-square-foot expansion of their facility on Bangor Road by this point in the year, after they received $4.4 million in federal, state and private grants to help pay for the project. But the permitting process has delayed the start of the project.
If it goes ahead, the new slaughterhouse would be able to process 20 cattle and up to 60 sheep and goats weekly, addressing growing demand for halal meat across Maine and the Northeast. Right now, it is the only facility of its kind in Maine.
But after Piper and Al-Rawi first sought local permission for the project in March, the Unity Planning Board is still reviewing the application after holding several meetings to discuss it. The panel could vote on it at a meeting Wednesday night.
Officials say they are working to ensure the project follows local regulations and that its waste won’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,” said Unity Code Enforcement Enforcer Dylan Lajoie. “For this lake in particular, algae blooms are a known risk.”
But Piper and Al-Rawi said that they have grown frustrated by the delays and worry that they’re being held to a higher regulatory standard than necessary. If they can’t get approval for the project, they also fear they could lose the millions in grants they have received for it.
Their project would take place in a rural area with no public sewer system, and as proposed, it would dispose of waste in multiple ways. It would 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 would 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.
So far, the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has reviewed the project and in October, it determined that it meets the best management practices for the disposal of agricultural wastewater, according to a letter the agency sent the business this month.
Maine exempts agricultural operations from having to get additional approval from the state Department of Health and Human Services for their subsurface wastewater disposal systems, which Piper and Al-Rawi have argued should be the case for their project.
But local officials have questioned whether the project is a commercial business that needs additional licensing through Maine DHHS.
Piper and Al-Rawi said that further delays could set the project back by almost a year, given the need to pour a foundation for the facility before the rest of construction can commence.
“That throws off our whole timeline for being able to open next fall,” Piper said.
