A big crowd turned out for the Providence Township supervisors' meeting Monday as officials discussed how local farmers are required to deal with stormwater.

At issue is whether a farmer who wants to build two poultry barns on his property is subject to township ordinances about stormwater if other requirements already are met.

Kenneth and Lisa Wiker of 993 Truce Road, Holtwood, want to build the barns on their 72.3-acre farm, and the township has been looking to apply its stormwater regulations to the project.

But Peter Hughes of Red Barn Consulting told supervisors that the Wikers should be exempt from the township's stormwater requirements because the use is related to agriculture and the farm already has a plan for handling erosion.

The township typically has interpreted its agricultural exemption to the stormwater requirements to mean that the activity has to apply to the land — such as in tilling — with actual construction of buildings still subject to the requirements.

In the case of the Wikers, Hughes said the township's regulations could require concrete stormwater pipes and fencing around stormwater basins. Hughes argued that those costly improvements should be unnecessary because the buildings are related to farming and the project already is being reviewed by the state Department of Environmental Protection, which doesn't require them.

If the state approves the plans, the township shouldn't require anything else, Hughes asserted.

Supervisors said they would have their solicitor review the matter and then decide what to do at their meeting in August.

Among the roughly 50 people in attendance at the meeting were about two dozen farmers who filed out after the discussion without making any comments.

In another matter, supervisors decided to cut a break to a student who was raising cows and pigs for the Solanco Fair without knowing she was in violation of a township ordinance related to keeping livestock.

Carey Kalupson, a Solanco High School agriculture teacher, brought up the issue with supervisors after learning that a student apparently was violating an ordinance for having seven pigs and two cows on the 1.9-acre property where she lives. The animals were part of an FFA project and are slated to be sold at the Solanco Fair, which begins Sept. 15.

However, the township's ordinances limit raising of livestock in residential areas to one per acre, meaning that on a 1.9-acre properly, only one animal would be allowed.

Supervisors eventually decided to let the student keep the animals until the fair, but said that in the future, the ordinance would have to be followed.

Kalupson didn't hazard a guess as to how many other FFA students may be in violation of the ordinance, which he said he hadn't known about.