Dead Animals

If all the capital projects proposed for Carroll County's Northern Landfill were actually built, there could be a serious crowding problem. After all, just about every NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") project proposed in Carroll seems destined for the popular dump.Aside from being one of the two county landfills, the northern site, which is just east of Westminster on Route 140, has been eyed by the three Carroll commissioners and others as a future home for a new detention center, a waste-to-energy plant, a recycling center and a large-scale yard waste composting plant.

Animal carcasses could be composted safely at the Northern Landfill in Reese, two University of Maryland agriculture engineers told county officials yesterday as they toured the landfill.The engineers, from the College Park campus, said they would design a building in which dead animals could be composted along with leaves and wood.Farmers need a place to dispose of animal carcasses, Taneytown hog farmer Frank E. Feeser said yesterday.Mr. Feeser is a member of the Carroll Agriculture Commission, which is studying the issue.

Seeking a way for local farmers to dispose of dead animals, members of Carroll County's Agriculture Commission have recommended locating a composting site at the Northern Landfill.The proposal, presented to the commissioners by the Agricultural Commission's Dead Animal Disposal Committee on Monday, is a result of high fees charged by renderers to pick up animals.Committee members also said they are concerned that burying the bodies could contaminate the county's ground water supply.The committee's report stated that about 1.5 million pounds of animals die in Carroll County each year.

Tom Greenbank checks his notes: cat in Savage, deer and cat in Ellicott City, deer in Lisbon.That's a full night's work for Howard County's one-man road-kill crew."

The cost of road kill is going up.While the County Council reviewed the first proposed overall budget cut in charter history yesterday, the Department of Inspections and Permits asked for $20,800 -- a nine-fold increase -- to dispose of dead animals.Inspections and Permits officials joined representatives from several other county departments yesterday in council chambers, answering questions about the money County Executive Robert R. Neall includedin his proposed $616.6 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.When it comes to the budget for removing dead animals, it's a simple matter of supply and demand, department chief Leroy Jonas explained.

When investigators raided the Marston farm in April, they found piles of rotting animal carcasses and about 250 diseased or malnourished animals wallowing in their own excrement.Police charged the two brothers who operated the farm with animal cruelty, but in August, a judge found them innocent.The conditions on the farm weren't perfect, but prosecutors didn't prove Carroll Lynn Schisler, 44, and August "Fred" Schisler, 38, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then-Carroll District Court Judge Francis M. Arnold ruled.

On a field behind an Ellicott City elementary school Halloween night, a Satanic ritual was performed using six dead animals, most of which apparently were killed by blows to the head, Howard County police said yesterday.Police officers combed the residential neighborhood in the 3700 block of Font Hill Drive yesterday asking residents if their cats were missing and possibly killed by those who were engaged in Satanic worship near Centennial Lane Elementary School.At least two of the animals appeared to be road kills, but the remaining four died from "head traumas," police said.