Animal blood seeps onto neighbors’ property in latest dispute with Bucks County slaughterhouse

Evelyn King’s view of her Plumstead Township backyard is normally one of green country fields, but one morning in March, it was tainted by thick puddles of blood.

The 79-year-old stepped outside to investigate and was struck by the stench of animal remains. In the driveway, just as in the backyard, syrupy puddles splattered feet from her doorstep. At her property line, pools of blood practically formed a small creek.

King had coexisted with her next door neighbor, a slaughterhouse, for the over 40 years she’d lived in her Bucks County home. But after the property was sold in 2021, she began experiencing problems.

The newly-formed Kingdom Provisions slaughterhouse has since been the subject of investigations into foul odors, an allegation of animal cruelty — and now, improper handling of liquid animal waste.

For King, the blood was the final straw.

“It’s a rural area, but we’re not that far apart,” King said. “It’s unconscionable really. I’m losing patience.”

Two weeks after the bloody incident, Kingdom Provisions says it has taken steps to ensure that storm water mixed with blood wouldn’t flow onto King’s property again, according to state investigators.

“We have resolved this issue,” said Kingdom Provisions owner Ephraim Stoltzfus in an email. “Neighbors are always an asset, we are a community that believes in supporting each other.”

The slaughterhouse’s practices, however, have long frustrated neighbors, leading to numerous complaints to local police and township officials.

Several Plumstead residents living near Kingdom Provisions described similar problems, citing intense odors, and in one instance, a bloody overflow like what happened to King.

Steady rains fell in Pipersville early the week of March 4, several days after Kingdom Provisions began spraying blood from slaughtered animals across a back field that abuts King’s property.

King suspected that the storm had washed the waste onto her lawn; an investigation from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection would help her better understand the scope of the problem.

The slaughterhouse had recently dispersed 750 gallons of blood onto the plain by tractor. But the field, torn up by machine and covered in clods and craters of dirt, hadn’t properly absorbed the waste, according to a report from the DEP.

According to Stoltzfus, the slaughterhouse owner, dispersing the animal blood is meant to fertilize the property’s soil with nutrients. Garden supply stores sell “blood meal” as a fertilizer, but it’s typically in a dry powder form.

“It doesn’t go away, it just goes into the ground,” said Donald King, Evelyn’s husband, mentioning his concern over the liquid blood that’s now seeped into his property. “If we do our flower beds in the spring, we’ll have to wear gloves.”

Since the Kings moved into their home in the early 1980s, the neighboring farm had been operated by a local family that Donald King said rarely caused any problems with neighbors.

Donald King said the farm rarely smelled and butchered pigs, not the variety of farm animals that Kingdom Provisions “custom” slaughters — meaning local producers can bring livestock to the facility for processing and return with USDA-certified meat. And the previous owners never incurred any DEP violations, according to a department spokesperson.

It wasn’t long after the family sold the property to a local company, Plumstead Acquisitions LLC, in 2021 that neighbors began complaining of a frequent stench wafting from the property, which the LLC had rented to Kingdom Provisions. The slaughterhouse eventually purchased the lot.

A June 2023 DEP inspection concerned smells of “sewage and rotting flesh” as well as the potential for runoff from the facility contaminating a nearby stream and water wells. Over the next several months, the slaughterhouse incurred eight violations as investigators repeatedly returned.

Many of those dealt with the open storage of animal remains, contributing to the smells neighbors had complained about, and violating the DEP’s rules for covering and sealing that type of waste. In one report, the department found an exposed cow carcass that had “bloated due to the heat, causing it to become exposed to the elements,” along with open containers of entrails, heads, and hides.

By August, Kingdom Provisions had taken steps to mitigate the smells such as removing the compost pile. But neighbors said the issues haven’t entirely gone away.

“The odor at some points was just unbearable,” said David Dreyer, who lives around 30 yards from the slaughterhouse’s property. “They did rectify it for a while, but now I noticed that the smell is starting to come back again.”

Kerry Rush, a co-owner of the slaughterhouse, told the Bucks County Herald last year that Kingdom Provisions works to comply with all relevant rules and regulations. He described complaints against the slaughterhouse as a “witch hunt.”

Evelyn King has bounced between Plumstead Township police, supervisors, and government agencies looking for a resolution to her complaints.

Plumstead police records provided to The Inquirer show that King isn’t alone.

The department has responded to five complaints against Kingdom Provisions since August. In one instance, an officer suggested that a disgruntled neighbor contact their state representative or investigative news teams.

Plumstead Township officials, including its zoning officer, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Evelyn was offered some hope when DEP inspectors returned to Kingdom Provisions on March 14, finding that the slaughterhouse had dug a barrier to catch liquid between the field and her property.

For the first time in months, the department issued no violations.

King said that in conversations with Stoltzfus, the owner apologized for the blood and said the incident was “unacceptable” and “terrible.”

Despite the kind words, “it gets worse and worse and worse,” Evelyn said.