A Greenbrier County company plans to build a meat processing plant in White Sulphur Springs after being selected as the latest investment from the Country Roads Angel Network. (CRAN) It’s the first company located outside of Morgantown to be supported by the investor network.
CRAN plans to invest $100,000 in Mountain Steer Meat Co. Mountain Steer is the third business in the state to be supported by the network.
The first two selected were in Morgantown. Mountain Steer started during the pandemic. The company saw a need for more localized food in 2020 after meat processing plants shut down across the country. The owners hope to fill a void in the supply chain and improve food quality for consumers in the region.
Mountain Steer plans to build a new processing plant in West Virginia.
The company currently offers meats at Greenbrier County restaurants, farmer’s markets and a grocery store, according to the company website. Mountain Steer has hired one full-time and one part-time employee. The company hopes to hire a butcher and several more employees with this investment.
CRAN is made up of investors largely native to the Mountain State who now live in places across the country. According to a release, “members are dedicated to the betterment of West Virginia and hope their investments will generate various levels of positive impact.”
As the economies of the Ohio Valley gradually reopen from the pandemic closures, state officials are still reporting hundreds of coronavirus cases each day in the region. In Kentucky, coronavirus cases are again on the rise, with a week-long average of daily cases approaching the highest level yet. Public health officials are concerned about a spread of coronavirus into more rural parts of the region.
“I’m really worried that the second wave of COVID, as we come back open again, is going to hit rural America much harder than the first wave,”Dr. Clay Marsh said. Marsh, who is vice president of West Virginia University Health Sciences, has been leading coronavirus protection efforts in the state.
For many rural counties, the spikes in case numbers have stemmed from a few kinds of facilities and workplaces where COVID-19 has spread like wildfire: meatpacking plants, prisons, and nursing homes. Protecting rural communities, where many people are especially vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19, will largely depend on controlling the spread in those facilities.
“The problem is without a vaccine, there is no path to recovery, that there’s nothing normal about going to work and having to wear a mask and having your temperature taken,” said Caitlin Blair, spokesperson for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227.
Blair’s union represents workers in several meatpacking plants throughout Kentucky and southern Indiana where some workplaces have been rocked by soaring coronavirus infections, driving up case numbers in the counties where they’re located.
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services confirmed earlier in June a third meatpacking worker in the state had died. The death was from a Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Henderson County, Kentucky, where a labor leader with UFCW Local 227 hadraised concerns about social distancing in their workplace despite use of masks and plastic barriers.
“They go to work in the meatpacking plant. But when they go home, they’re your neighbors and your friends and your family,” Blair said. “Protecting these workers protects the whole community.”
Ananalysis from the Food and Environmental Reporting Network found that rural counties with meatpacking plants on average had COVID-19 cases five times higher than other rural counties without plants.
That analysis included two west Kentucky plants with hundreds of cases and two deaths between them: the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Henderson County, and a Perdue Farms poultry processing plant in Ohio County.
“In our seven-county district, we’ve, you know, the major driver of the cases that we’ve worked have been facilities in this sector,” said Clay Horton, director of the Green River District Health Department in west Kentucky. “When you look at a business or you look at a major employer, probably one of the larger employers in Ohio County, it’s bound to have an impact.”
Horton and his regional health department have been in close contact with leaders at both plants as outbreaks took hold over the past few months, advising on workplace safety guidance from the state and federal government.
He said that while more data is needed on where cases originate, outbreaks in these plants could be spreading the virus to other people in rural communities, or at the very least driving up reported COVID-19 case numbers in counties where plants are located.
The Green River District Health Department confirmed the first cases of COVID-19 at the Perdue Farms in Ohio County and the Tyson Foods plant in Henderson County on April 6 and April 13, respectively.
According to theOhio Valley ReSource’s COVID-19 Tracker, the seven-day average rate of newly reported cases each day began to increase in both counties as outbreaks took hold at the plants.
Ohio County, with a population of about 24,000, has almost twice the rate of coronavirus cases per capita compared to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where Louisville, Kentucky’s most populous city, is located.
Horton’s job to encourage workplace safety in these plants is complicated by federal guidance implying that the authority to temporarily shut down plants due to coronavirus cases should be left up to federal authorities, not state and local health officials.
Horton said he often only has the “power of persuasion” to encourage meatpacking plants to follow optionalfederal coronavirus safety guidance, with his health department and companies not seeing eye-to-see on some standards.
He said Perdue Farms believed a worker who had no fever but was still showing other COVID-19 symptoms, including coughing, could come back to work. Horton’s department disagreed.
“There have been times during this outbreak that I’ve personally recommended to them that they should probably go above and beyond [federal guidelines], just in light of the number of cases that they were seeing and what we were seeing in terms of spread in the community,” Horton said. “They obviously had a different perspective, and we did all we could to try to persuade them to see [things] that way.”
Jails and Prisons
Meatpacking plants aren’t the only facilities driving COVID-19 infections in rural communities and isolated counties. Jails and prisons, some with overcrowded conditions and tight confines, and nursing homes, with particularly vulnerable populations, have also seen devastating outbreaks in rural counties.
Public health experts on the front lines combating this virus say controlling outbreaks in these types of facilities is critical to protecting rural communities where the chance of COVID-19 spread would otherwise be low.
Credit J. Tyler Franklin
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The group “Prison Wives of Green River” protested May 23 to call attention to COVID-19 cases in the prison.
At one point, soaring cases in in Central City, Kentucky, population 5,730, landed the town at the top of a White Housereport as having one of the country’s highest increases in coronavirus cases over a seven-day period in May, with a spike of 650%.
Those cases could be pinpointed to one specific place: Green River Correctional Complex on the outskirts of the town. At least 363 inmates and 51 staff in the prison have tested positive, with many stillwaiting to be retested for the virus. According to the ReSource COVID-19 Data Tracker, Muhlenberg County, where Central City is located, saw a massive surge in cases in early May, around the time of the White House report.
Muhlenberg County’s per capita rate of coronavirus infections is 1615 cases per 100,0000 people, six times the rate for the state as a whole and among the highest of any county in the Ohio Valley. Nearly 1 in 5 people in the county are over the age of 65, and the county ranks among the worst in the country in rates of deaths due to cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory disease, all risk factors making the population there more vulnerable to the worst effects of COVID-19.
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Underlying health problems make many Muhlenberg Co. residents vulnerable to COVID-19.
Belmont Correctional Institution in eastern Ohio sawcases spike through mid-May, with at least 66 staffers and 132 inmates testing positive out of almost 2500 housed there. Three of those inmates died.
Belmont County Health Department Deputy Health Commissioner Robert Sproul said about 70% of the county’s cases are connected to the prison, with another 20% connected to nursing homes in the county.
“It has dorm settings so it’s not individual cells. So these inmates are in close contact, you know, most all day. So the chance of spread is great. Same with a nursing home,” Sproul said. “This spread can happen very easily. So it seems to be more prevalent in those congregated areas.”
Since the first coronavirus caseswere confirmed at Belmont Correctional Institution in mid-April, cases steadily increased in Belmont County through May with a total 462 cases so far, according the ReSource’s COVID-19 Tracker.
Some of Ohio’s other prisons isolated in rural counties have seen skyrocketing outbreaks, with the state corrections departmentannouncing in May it would only test symptomatic inmates and staffdespite thousands testing positive after mass testing.
Ohio Department of Health Press Secretary Melanie Amato in a statement said the department has seen cases of meatpacking and nursing home workers spreading COVID-19 to other community members.
Nursing Homes
West Virginia has the smallest population among the Ohio Valley states but its people are among the nation’smost vulnerable to COVID-19 due to underlying health problems. So far coronavirus outbreaks in meatpacking plants and prisons have been limited in the state.
State officials began testing all staff and inmates in state correctional facilities after anoutbreak at the Huttonsville Correctional Center in Randolph County. So far that hasnot found other large outbreaks. Health officialsbegan testing for COVID-19 at a Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Moorefield, West Virginia, after a small bump in cases in the county.
But that hasn’t spared the state from devastating outbreaks in nursing homes.
Clay Marsh, who’s been leading coronavirus protection efforts in the state, said it’s still critical to keep a close eye on these kinds of facilities that could be drivers of outbreaks. Particularly “congregate settings” including nursing homes, where the elderly population is especially vulnerable to the virus.
“In West Virginia, at least the last time I looked, over 50% of people that die [from COVID-19] are people that live in this kind of setting,” Marsh said. “The clear issue is that people that work at these facilities, live in the communities, and if there’s community spread, then you can guess at some point somebody is going to introduce that spread into these congregate populations.”
The operators and administrators of nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons have all implemented in varying degrees measures to protect against coronavirus spread. Those include testing temperatures when entering facilities, requiring masks, and restricting visitation.
Yet Marsh said risk remains as people travel into West Virginia for summer tourism and businesses reopen. And recently another activity has him concerned, as Black Lives Matterprotests grow. He said while he supports the demonstrations he would like to see more protesters wear masks and keep their distance from others.
“I love them. But you just see people without masks and crowding. And you almost want to say ‘We still have a pandemic here, you know, this, COVID thing hasn’t gone away,’” Marsh said. “And I think people are distracted right now. Maybe they just got tired of staying inside.”
The ReSource’s Brittany Patterson and Aaron Payne contributed to this story.
This story was updated on Thursday, April 30, 2020 at 9:00 a.m., to include Gov. Beshear’s comments and information about public health inspections at the JBS facility.
As President Trump ordered meatpacking plants on Tuesday to keep operating amid the coronavirus pandemic, more details are emerging about the concerns workers had about their safety at a facility in Louisville, where dozens of workers were infected and one died.
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reported as of Monday, the state was aware of 220 coronavirus cases at four meatpacking plants, including 34 cases at a JBS Swift plant in Louisville. The cabinet also reported one death — at that Louisville plant.
Records of complaints filed with the Louisville Metro Public Health Department show that in early April employees were concerned that the company was not doing enough to protect them.
One health department complaint, filed on April 9, stated a worker at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant said a coworker tested positive for the coronavirus. According to the complaint, the company did not inform employees about the positive case, and the plant was not using social distancing for its employees at that time.
A second complaint, filed on April 13, stated that despite an employee death due to COVID-19, the company was not taking any cleaning measures at the plant.
According to the complaint, “an employee had a positive test in the plant, and has passed away. Employee worked on the King floor in the plant, stated the company has not taken any measures as far as cleaning or any sanitization of the facility.”
The complaint continued, “employees are concerned about their safety inside the [building]. Stated after concerns grew inside and working at location in [building], company told employees that if they did not come to work they would be terminated.”
In a statement sent Tuesday to the Ohio Valley ReSource, JBS USA spokesperson Cameron Bruett said that the company is now testing worker temperatures and requiring face masks. He also said no worker is being forced to work or is being punished for absences due to health reasons. The company is also staggering shifts and breaks, deep-cleaning facilities every day, and removing workers vulnerable to the virus from facilities.
Union Request
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 represents workers at the JBS Swift plant and several other meatpacking plants in Kentucky, including a Tyson Foods plant in Henderson County closing this week for sanitation after a coronavirus outbreak.
Union spokesperson Caitlin Blair did not directly comment on the complaints on record with the Louisville health department, but said workers are concerned for their health and safety.
“Yet they continue to show up to work to produce the food that we all need, and we owe them our gratitude for being brave frontline workers who didn’t sign up for this,” Blair said. “And we need to do whatever it takes to protect them and support them.”
In a statement to the Resource, Blair said the union is asking every employer they work with to be transparent with information on positive cases so that workers can make the best decisions for their health.
“We are working directly with JBS to ensure the company takes action to immediately strengthen protections at this plant to keep these workers safe on the job,” Blair said in the statement. “We’re calling on our federal and state officials to provide increased access to testing for meatpacking workers and a place in line for PPE as it becomes available. The CDC and OSHA recently issued guidelines for meatpacking and poultry plants to keep workers safe. These guidelines shouldn’t be a suggestion. They should be mandatory.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Sunday released optional guidance for meatpacking plants to follow, including asking there be distance between workers, staggering breaks for workers, and reducing the contact workers have with each other in plants and during ride-sharing to and from the workplace.
During Tuesday’s edition of WFPL’s “In Conversation,” host Rick Howlett asked Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer how the city was monitoring COVID-19 cases at the JBS Swift plant.
“We have a team of folks that visit employers and other groups to make sure proper protocols are in place, and if not you get corrective action with that. These meatpacking plants all around the country obviously have been a very significant challenge, some with hundreds and hundreds of infections in their plants,” Fischer said. “So, the nature of that work is people are working very closely together, which of course is a problem. That’s why we want the 6-foot distancing. So, yes, we are working with JBS to make sure that they have all the best protocols they can have in place for their business, which is defined as an essential business.”
Health Inspection
Louisville Metro Public Health Department has the authority to perform unannounced inspections of workplaces and remove individuals with COVID-19 symptoms from the workplace. Department spokesperson Dave Langdon said inspectors performed two inspections at the plant in April: one on April 13 — the same day the department received the complaint that alleged a worker with coronavirus died — and a second inspection on April 21.
According to investigation notes, inspectors during the April 13 inspection found several precautions to prevent virus spread were already in place, including temperature scanning for employees, protective equipment and sanitizing materials.
However, inspectors at that time still recommended that more social distancing needed to be practiced, and workers who were cutting, rendering, and packaging meat products still lacked proper barriers. The inspectors also requested soap and paper towels be made available on production floors for workers.
“Still need barriers placed between individual workstations. These are small compact areas where it is difficult to practice 6 feet of social distancing,” the report states. “Ensure all hand sinks in the facility and on the production, floors are stocked with soap and disposable paper towels.”
Ultimately, the inspectors on April 13 ordered plant management to ensure more social distancing, add barriers, and follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
During the subsequent April 21 inspection, inspectors still noticed failures to social distance at the plant.
“During lunch time, observed employees standing in close proximity (less than 6 feet apart) at the hot holding station. Observed Liberty Food Service employees improperly washing hands. Instructed Food Service Manager to ensure employees use a barrier to turn off the hand sink. Plant Operator said he would request maintenance to install foot pedals on the cafeteria hand sinks,” the report states.
Inspectors also noted that the plant was following CDC guidance issued on April 20, which allowed for workers who tested positive for the virus who were asymptomatic for seven days to return to work. The guidance also allowed for close contacts to those who tested positive after, but were asymptomatic for seven days, to return to work.
Inspectors “strongly recommended” that those with COVID-19 and close contacts of those individuals be removed from work for 14 days, not seven days.
The inspectors also recommended that more barriers be installed in the plant cafeteria, better face mask use be encouraged as many employees were “observed pulling down their masks, so that noses were exposed.” Inspectors said health department exposure advisories should be handed out to employees who had close contact with coworkers positive with the coronavirus.
Presidential Order
Ohio Valley worker safety advocates in recent weeks have raised concerns about the spread of coronavirus in meatpacking plants because of the tight quarters workers operate in and the high levels of interaction workers have with each other. These plants may now have to stay open, with President Donald Trump signing an executive order Tuesday to keep plants operating. Trump said he is also working on a plan “to solve any liability problems” for meatpacking companies.
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles praised the executive order in a release, pointing to potential financial impacts that livestock farmers could see from shuttered meatpacking plants.
“We’ve already seen how temporary plant shutdowns in other states can have a major ripple effect on our way of life: a decline in livestock and poultry prices, and rumors of protein shortages in grocery stores,” Quarles said in a statement. “President Trump’s decision will help reduce disruption in our food supply chain and better help protect workers.”
The UFCW urged President Trump in a release Tuesday to enact enforceable coronavirus safety standards for meatpacking companies to follow if plants were to remain open.
Democratic Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, called Trump’s executive order “disturbing” if no mandated safety standards are required in meatpacking plants.
“There is clear evidence that without proper protections from COVID-19, workers in meat processing plants and other workplaces will continue to fall ill and die from this disease,” Scott said in a statement. “The administration would better reflect the best of America’s values if it used the [Defense Production Act] to mandate the production and distribution of personal protective equipment, while issuing an emergency workplace safety standard to protect workers from COVID-19.”
Worker safety advocates have said the lack of an enforceable safety standard among meatpacking plants could lead to some plants not offering enough protection.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said during a Wednesday press conference that despite Trump’s order, it’s important for meatpacking plants to follow health guidelines and regulations, or risk putting their workers in harm’s way.
“If you know you got a problem and you’re unwilling to pause to fix it, you’re going to have a bigger problem going forward,” Beshear said. “It’s the same as any of these regulations that we’re talking about that if we don’t follow them and do what it takes to lessen the spread, then you end up with a worse result.”
Amina Elahi, Rick Howlett and Laura Ellis of WFPL, and Jeff Young of the ReSource contributed reporting. This story may be updated.
This is breaking news; this article will be updated.
The Kentucky Department for Public Health has confirmed 220 employees at meatpacking plants across Kentucky have tested positive for the coronavirus, with one employee death related to the virus in Louisville.
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services spokeswoman Susan Dunlap in an email Monday afternoon said the Beshear administration is aware of cases and one death at four meatpacking plants in the state:
JBS USA, Jefferson County (34 positive employees; 1 employee death)
Perdue Farms, Ohio County (110 positive employees)
Tyson Foods (Lake Cumberland), Lincoln County (2 positive employees)
Tyson Foods(Green River), Henderson County (74 positive employees)
This follows confirmed coronavirus outbreaks in west Kentucky at a Perdue Farms plant in Cromwell, Kentucky (Ohio County), and a Tyson Foods plant in Robards, Kentucky (Henderson County). The Ohio Valley Resource reported that as of April 23, there were 62 cases at the Tyson Foods plant and 19 cases at the Perdue Farms plant.
Dunlap also said the Tyson Foods plant in Henderson County is closing from April 30 through May 3 “for a deep clean and to make adjustments that will allow for better social distancing.”
Worker safety advocates in the Ohio Valley in the past have expressed concern regarding the potential of virus spread in meatpacking plants due to the tight quarters these workers operate in.
Dunlap also said the Department for Public Health has been in contact with the Tyson Foods facility in Henderson County and the Perdue Farms plant in Ohio County. Talks with the plant leadership have included details of positive cases, social distancing strategies, leave policies, efforts to support workers who test positive, and addressing the fears of workers coming into the plant.
As the number of coronavirus cases surge across the country, some meatpacking facilities have beentemporarily shuttered due to workers falling ill to the virus. Three workers in Georgia have even died.
With workers at some Ohio Valley facilities now testing positive for the virus, worker safety advocates are raising concerns about how adequately workers are being protected and the implications for the food supply.
West Virginia’s poultry and livestock industries bring in the large majority of the state’s agricultural revenue, with poultry and eggsbringing in approximately $387,884,000 in 2017. Most of that production happens in the state’s eastern panhandle in places including Pendleton County, where Steve Conrad raises turkeys for a regional cooperative.
He said a worker tested positive for the coronavirus last week at the cooperative’s poultry processing facility across the state border in Hinton, Virginia. While Conrad believes the situation at the facility is under control, the potential for spread of the virus at such processing facilities could be substantial.
“I would think it would spread like wildfire, to tell you the truth, if it’s as infectious as what they say it is,” Conrad said. “The people are standing probably within three feet of each other as either they’re taking the meat off the bones or taking the feathers off the carcass, and pulling the guts out.”
He said the cooperative has taken measures such as removing microwaves used by workers at the facility’s cafeteria, using masks in the facility, and monitoring the health of workers. Executive leadership at the cooperative could not be immediately reached for comment regarding social distancing and other measures at the facility.
Conrad also said unlike the other industries, it can be difficult to slow down the meatpacking production.
“If you’re building cars, you can just shut down the line. You know, that steel is going to be ready for you whenever you start up again,” Conrad said. “But in the poultry business, or the cattle business or hogs … they’re growing so many pounds on a daily basis. We can’t shut off the feed. They got to be harvested.”
Cargill is one of the latest meatpacking companies to close a processing facility to protect their workers’ health. And more cases are beginning to pop up in Ohio Valley facilities elsewhere.
Growing Risk
Caitlin Blair is a spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 277, a union chapter representing people working for Pilgrim’s Pride, Specialty Foods Group, Tyson Foods, and JBS USA, at meatpacking plants throughout Kentucky and in southern Indiana.
She said there have been some positive coronavirus tests among these facilities, and the union has been pushing meatpacking companies to better protect union workers.
“A lot of our employers are doing really well, social distancing, especially in public areas, or common areas like break rooms. But there’s also a lot of room for improvement,” Blair said. “The machines are loud, and it’s a dangerous shop, normally. And the coronavirus has just made that job even more dangerous.”
Blair said while Kentucky already considers meatpacking workers essential, her union is trying to get the state government to classify workers as first responders to get better access to personal protective equipment andaccess to child care services. The union is also asking companies to slow down the speed of their processing plants to allow for more protective measures.
Blair said some companies have offered some union members one-time bonuses, ranging from $300 to $600. But she said these bonuses may not be paid out for months and are sometimes tied to worker attendance.
“Various employers have tied that to perfect attendance at a time when day cares are closed, schools are closed, people are having to scramble for childcare,” she said. “Those bonuses should be paid immediately with no attendance strings attached.”
Protections and bonuses vary among the major meatpacking companies in the Ohio Valley. Tyson Foods said the company ischecking the temperature of workers before they enter plants, building dividers between workstations, and adding space between workers. Pilgrim’s Pride and JBS USA is alsosetting up “triage tents” to test temperatures and stagger break times for workers.
Yet one worker safety advocate argues the mismatched protection standards across the industry could leave some workers more vulnerable to the coronavirus, and says the federal government should do more.
Deborah Berkowitz is worker health and safety program director for the National Law Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for workers’ rights. She said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration hasreleased guidance for employers regarding coronavirus, but there isn’t a required standard for COVID-19 among the meatpacking industry.
“What you’re finding is a lot of companies, because there’s no mandated requirements, are just doing a little bit here, a little bit there, but not enough to protect workers,” Berkowitz said. “That is a devastatingly dangerous situation for workers to be in.”
Berkowitz, who served as a senior policy adviser for OSHA, said by having a standard of mandated social distancing and extra precautions for sanitizing, these plants can better protect their workers.
Supply Concerns
For Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles in addition to concerns about worker safety, the state’s most lucrative agriculture industry is at risk. Livestock and poultry products brought in more than $3 billion to the state in 2017.
“One of my biggest concerns is keeping our meat processors open for business,” Quarles said. “A short disruption or shut down of a processing plant can ripple all the way down to the farm level instantly.”
Quarles also said the Kentucky Department of Agriculture is still developing guidance with the Kentucky Farm Bureau to be issued to farmers regarding appropriate coronavirus measures. In the meantime, he asks those in the industry to followguidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
