The entrance gate to the TCB Farms property on East Road near Friendship notes it is a 'biosecurity' area.

"It's terrible, just really bad," said Jeremy Tillman, who owns an automotive repair shop off Highway 412 in Friendship, less than a mile north of TCB Farms LLC's 2,400-head pig farm. "Bad headaches, a sick feeling, burning nostrils. It's a shame you can't enjoy the outdoors because of somebody else."

TCB Farms is owned by Shawnee Brasfield and Alan Whitby, and is a supplier for Tosh Foods, notes the permit request made to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Division of Water Pollution Control. TCB has requested the permit to operate a two-barn swine operation "housing up to 2,400 head per barn."

Friendship residents Daniel Tillman, Beth Tillman, Bill Williams, Judy Coker, Jimmy Coker, Judy Chasteen, James Robertson, Wanda Robertson and Viki Parker stand in the lot of Tillman's auto repair shop, less than a mile across Highway 412 from TCB Farms' 2,400-head swine operation. Dusk is when the odors become almost unbearable, the group said.

TCB since August 2006 has operated a 2,400-hog farm on East Road.

Viki Parker, who is leading a group against the permit, said there was little public notice given for the start-up of the farm in 2006, "so everyone was wondering where this smell came from. Enough is enough."

State law requires operators of farms with confined animals to obtain a CAFO -- Confined Animal Feeding Operation -- permit. For an operation expanding as large as the TCB farm is planning, an individual National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit is needed. The permit limits the discharge of manure and wastewater to "only uncontaminated storm water" except for a 25-year, 24-hour "catastrophic precipitation event, approximately 6 inches."

The thought of 5,000 swine, each producing about 1.5 tons of waste during their lifetimes, within a mile of Friendship Elementary School prompted students to write letters to TCB Farms asking for consideration of their health, said Parker.

Parker said springtime, when temperatures rise, is when the smell begins to waft across Highway 412 and into Friendship for the better part of a year.

"It's noxious," said resident Judy Chasteen. "The smell, you really can't describe how bad it can get."

"Last year there was a horrible smell that permeated the entire area, like a sewer on steroids," Parker said. "People who were driving on 412 were covering their faces with their hands, their clothes, anything to filter out the stench they were driving through. The ones driving were the lucky ones -- they don't live here."

Tillman, who with his wife, Beth, have a small child, said the odor "makes you have to put a shirt over your mouth." Customers complain about the smell, he said, and Tillman said his employees often have to leave work to avoid the smell.

Bill Williams, who sits on the Crockett County Regional Planning Commission, said he is concerned the hog operation lies inside Friendship's urban growth boundary and is upwind of the town's industrial park.

The farm is on a hill less than a mile south of Advantage Manufacturing, Moore Pumps and White's Quick Mart.

Williams submitted an amendment to the Crockett County Commission in September 2007 that would have set minimum setback distances for feedlots of 1,000 feet to a residential structure, commercial structure, church, school, lake or stream and a two-mile distance to an existing feedlot. The commission tabled the amendment unanimously.

Tennessee law only requires setbacks relative to CAFOs for manure application near wellheads and streams.

Crockett County Mayor Larry Griffin said the counties "do not have the power to prohibit or regulate normal agricultural activities" and offered a July 2004 Tennessee Attorney General's opinion as support.

TDEC is scheduled to host a public hearing at 4 p.m. Tuesday at school.

Parker said the public hearing was set because of Friendship residents insisting the state listen to their complaints.

"It may not do any good," she said. "But at least we get our say."