Clarkson responds to complaints about 'fresh' country air

Clarkson, by its very nature, is a rural community and with that comes the inevitability that someone will own livestock - be it horses, cows or chickens. But Supervisor Paul Kimball said there have been some complaints raised by neighbors of a horse farm located on one of the town's rural roads about the amount, and odor, of the manure on that farm.

"This farm has a fair number of horses and no where to get rid of the manure so it is draining onto the neighboring properties," Kimball said at the July 13 board meeting. "According to our codes, it is unlawful to discharge sewage."

Kimball said the issues of the smells and the drainage have come up on a fairly regular basis.

Town officials have looked to neighboring towns for their regulations and found that the Town of Parma specifies now many horses an individual can have per acre: for one to two horses there must be a 3.5 acre parcel; three to five horses, five acres and with six to 10 horses there must be one acre per horse. In Hamlin, property owners must have lots of five acres or more to keep animals In general, Kimball said the law appears to state an individual can have only two adult horses, or cattle, or swine or up to 25 poultry.

"I'd like to look at our codes and come up with something to address this issue," Kimball said.

Councilperson Harlan Purdy said that hopefully some of those issues would be addressed in the master plan. "That would have a more far reaching affect than changing our existing code," he said.

Looking to Cornell Cooperative Extension for more scientific guidelines on how many animals should be raised per acre is something that Councilman Allan Hoy would like to see happen.

Board members unanimously decided to present the issue to the zoning board for their input.

In other matters the board cancelled its second July meeting as there were no pressing matters on the town's calendar. The next meeting will be August 10 at 7 p.m.