By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM – Potsdam village legislators and about 50 community members heard a proposal by a United Helpers company Monday night to put a small slaughterhouse in the village as a possible precursor to a larger food hub operation.

Some in the audience expressed concern about the chance for foul smells coming from the plant, including Bruce Clicquennoi, the owner of the nearby restaurant Eben’s Hearth.

Some people there remember the unpleasant smells that emanated from the Pahler slaughterhouse on the Canton-Potsdam Road.

Steve Knight, president of Sparx, said modern operations of this kind are much more conscious of that, and that they contain and dispose of the blood and offal without much local impact.

“All of the offal stays inside in a cool room and is picked up for rendering,” Knight said.

Knight said the operation would process about 40 head of local cattle per week. He was there, he said, just to present information on the proposal, not to ask anything of the village government at this point.

He said he would like to see the operation in Potsdam over other sites he has looked at in order to have access village water and sewer.

For the plan to be given the go-ahead, several rounds of planning board, DEC, and village board involvement would be required, particularly the granting of a new zoning category just for the slaughterhouse.

Some in the audience expressed support for the operation, which would be in the old Crary sawmill property off of Pine Street.

Retired union leader Ernie LaBaff of Norwood said the plan presents the opportunity to get some jobs for people in the area. He said his own children left the area to find work, and the six to 10 jobs would be a boost.

Village resident Linda Caamaño said she had been a vegetarian for 10 years, but what brought her back to meat was the locally available meats that produce more of a benefit to the community.

Some people expressed concern about increased truck traffic on Pine Street and Madrid Avenue, but others pointed out that with the traffic from Lavalle transport and National Grid would dwarf any traffic generated by the slaughterhouse.

The proposed operation, with its retail store, would be the first step in building one of Sparx’s goals of creating a central food hub for local producers to bring their goods for local or regional sale.

An Oswegatchie farmer recently announced that she is planning a slaughterhouse of her own.

Kandace Dietschweiler-Hartlet says her farm, Serenity Acres and Farm Store, would include a slaughterhouse and meat processing facility in the former flea market in Ogdensburg, also planned to process about 40 head per week.