Through a tangle of trees separating his land from a neighbor’s, Charles Blackmon stared glumly at the cluster of chicken barns where mountains of putrid waste are generated every year.

It’s a scene he’s gotten used to, but not one he’s happy about.

On summer days, the smell of chickens and manure often drifts across his community from the farm near his property, Blackmon says. When it rains, water seeps into the earth, threatening to send bacteria into groundwater in an area where people drink from wells.

Most of all, Blackmon worries about chicken farm pollution hurting a river where he learned to swim, fish and trap turtles as a boy.