A Linn County judge has invalidated a permit for a proposed chicken farm that would have raised over three million chickens per year east of Salem.
The decision, issued Tuesday, follows years of push back from a coalition of local farmers and residents concerned the farm would pollute local drinking water and the nearby North Santiam River.
J-S Ranch is the last of three large chicken farms the coalition, Farmers Against Foster Farms, has fought against for almost five years. The other two, which had each proposed to raise over four million broiler chickens per year for Foster Farms, have already scrapped plans to develop in the area.
Foster Farms is one of the largest poultry producers on the West Coast, and sells chicken at Fred Meyer and Safeway.
FILE - A sign declares opposition to large chicken grow-out facilities planned in Scio, Ore., east of Salem in this Dec. 9, 2022, photo. In May 2025, a judge has halted a controversial proposed chicken farm east of Salem.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
In 2022, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environmental Quality issued J-S Ranch a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, permit — a type of water quality permit designed to limit manure runoff to ground and surface waters.
Shortly after, the Farmers Against Foster Farms coalition challenged the permit in court, arguing that the proposed site flooded easily and that it would pollute the river. The farm’s permit application indicated it would produce over 4,000 tons of chicken manure.
Then, just before the case was scheduled to go to trial in 2024, the state’s Department of Agriculture temporarily withdrew the permit for “reconsideration.”
Later that year, the state reinstated the permit with some modifications. But the coalition again pushed back and argued the state should have granted a new permit, following a set of new stricter rules signed into law in 2023 through Senate Bill 85. At a Tuesday Linn County Circuit Court hearing, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs.
“By the time they [ODA] took the permit back, the Legislature had already passed Senate Bill 85. It made improvements, stronger protections for water quality,” said Amy van Saun, an attorney representing the group. “It should have complied with the current state of the law, and it didn’t.”
Christina Eastman, whose property is right next door to the J-S Ranch site, called the ruling a win, and said she is hoping this is the end of years of rallying her neighbors.
“We had to try to get a community behind us that, you know, they got their own lives, they’re busy,” she said. “We had to explain this over and over. We had to go out with a screw gun and put up 500 signs to inform everybody in our area what was happening.”
It’s unclear if the state will appeal the judge’s decision. In an email statement, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Agriculture told OPB the agency is working with its attorneys to explore “next steps.”
J-S Ranch owner and operator Eric Simon, who also runs another chicken farm in Brownsville, Oregon, said Tuesday’s decision is devastating. Simon bought the 60-acre property for $372,000 in 2021, according to Linn County property records. He said has already bought equipment and lumber to build 11 large barns at the site.
Simon said he felt the judge’s decision was unfair because his permit was issued before the state Legislature passed new rules.
He said he had bought the site specifically to replace square footage of barn space devoted to raising poultry chickens that had been lost over the last few years in Oregon.
“Most of our growers are older and they’re retiring and they’re selling or closing down the farms,” Simon said. “And that square footage is not being replaced.”
Even if he wanted to submit an application for a new CAFO permit, it’s unlikely it would get approved. That’s because Linn County now requires a one-mile setback between new proposed large chicken facilities and neighboring properties. The nearest neighboring property line to J-S Ranch is half-a-mile away.
The only way that rule can be waived is if the proposed site has the support of its neighbors.
When asked if he will continue trying to build a chicken farm, Simon said he likely won’t.
“I can’t in Linn County, not with that property,” he said. “Unless the neighbors agree, which we know that they’re not going to agree.”