Since the 18th century, generations of the family of Sam and Kathy Herrick have farmed in Rowley.

Today, Sam Herrick operates his property as a dairy farm, one of just six left in Essex County. The struggle to survive gets more difficult every year, Kathy Herrick said, so when she heard there was a draft proposal in town to regulate the other product of their cows, manure, she had to speak up.

So did about five dozen of their fellow farmers, who overflowed out of the Town Hall Annex last week at a Board of Health meeting, prepared to vent their frustration on their increasingly regulated industry.

Surprised by the turnout, the board tabled the measure after 10 minutes and rescheduled it for the next Monday at the larger Town Hall, where the board agreed to take a second look at the issue but not before listening to the outcry.

At the meeting, Kathy Herrick was curious to know what exactly the town was looking for from a farm like hers, as regulation makes it increasingly difficult to earn a living.

“We’re dinosaurs,” Herrick said at the meeting, motioning to the dairy farmer sitting next to her, Stanley Pikul of Pikul Farm.

“I’m tired of all this legislative stuff,” she said later. “That (draft) wording would have shut us down.”

The main intention of the town is to keep runoff from the manure from polluting the groundwater, which serves as the town’s water supply. If manure is kept too close to wetlands, as officials say was the case on at least one local farm, it could force the town to install a water filtration plant at a potential cost of millions of dollars, officials said.

“The reason why we’re interested and feel it’s important for us to have landowner guidance in managing manure is that manure can present a problem,” Board of Health Chairman Charles Costello said. “It’s a good fertilizer — I use it — but if it leaches out from where it’s stored, it does create huge problems.”

In an effort to stem the problem, Costello prepared a three-page regulation that would, in part, control the storage, collection, transportation and disposal of manure, as well as other substances like hoof oil and formaldehyde. For some farms, that would mean paying a licensed hauler to truck manure off the property.

Costello mentioned several issues the board has encountered in which improperly stored manure had caused problems and nearly contaminated the groundwater. He added one of those problems was still being mitigated.

“We felt as a board we’ve had a few problems, and there should be more guidance in how this is done,” Costello said at Monday’s meeting. “Initially, we thought (regulation) would be the way to go. We got a big reaction from folks — a lot of folks who are here tonight — and we heard you.”

Manure management

Though the board effectively shelved the proposed regulations from last week and approached this week’s meeting in the spirit of compromise, some of those present found it hard not to call attention to the proposed regulations, which they say would severely harm their livelihoods if enacted.