Franklin County doesn’t oppose Buffalo Trace, it opposes their current expansion plan

Franklin County residents aren’t against Buffalo Trace or their employees or economic growth; they are against Buffalo Trace building warehouses without restrictions anywhere they can buy agricultural land in the county. As one Peaks Mill farmer said, “How about Buffalo Trace wanting to buy out Peaks Mill and all of Franklin County for whiskey houses by changing the vocabulary of our planning and zoning laws?”

Franklin Co. landowners welcome economic growth. But they want it to be planned growth in accordance with the County/City Comprehensive Development Plan which is not the same as Buffalo Trace’s Plan. Buffalo Trace’s plan is to build a cluster of 17 industrial warehouses filled with a total of 33 million gallons of highly flammable alcohol, within a mile of a school, adjacent to a 132-home subdivision, on karst land. A toxic spill on karst land, like the proposed Peaks Mill warehouse site, would be carried by a network of underground streams and, in Peaks Mill’s case, would resurface multiple places along Elkhorn Creek, possibly several miles from the spill site. It’s for these reasons that the City/County Comprehensive Development plan does not permit building warehouses of any kind on a site like Peaks Mill.

Here is what many people don’t understand — why won’t Buffalo Trace follow the Comprehensive Development Plan? Why won’t they build their warehouses somewhere in the county where they would have minimal environmental impact, away from schools, family homes and producing farms? If they did the City/Co. will still get jobs. The tourist will still come and Buffalo Trace will still pay taxes (that is if they aren’t successful in getting the legislature to drop the barrel tax). Buffalo Trace is not going to move the distillery out of Frankfort if they can’t build in Peaks Mill; they are too heavily invested in their distillery site. So why won’t they pick a more appropriate warehouse construction site that conforms to the Comprehensive Development Plan? One can only conclude that they want, what they want, when they want it. Schools, homes, environmentally fragile land, farmers be damned. How neighborly!

Many people oppose Buffalo Trace’s Plan. Some 1,657 people have signed a petition to stop the warehouse construction on environmental grounds. Anderson County farmers have filed a lawsuit because Buffalo Trace’s Hwy 151 warehouse site does not conform to their county’s Comprehensive Development Plan.

Henry County farmers have lawyered up too. At their last public hearing Wendell Berry asked Henry Co. Planning and Zoning why they would ask the people of Henry County to sacrifice good farmland that feeds nearby cities, to the interest of tourism and whiskey, which are not needed, but are luxuries dependent on a wasteful and threatened affluence. A Peaks Mill farmer echoed Berry’s warning, “ We start biting the hand that feeds us when we allow predatory capitalism to take over, as Buffalo Trace is attempting.”

One Louisiana family privately owns Buffalo Trace. It is one of the largest, some say THE largest, spirits company in the U.S. with billions in revenue. Surely Buffalo Trace can expand its industrial footprint in accordance with the City/County Development Plan and still realize billions in revenue. Other Kentuccky distillers like Brown Foreman have. So, why doesn’t Buffalo Trace?

Margaret Groves is a member of the Protect Peaks Mill Neighbor Association. She has lived in Franklin Co. for the past 50 years. Her home is a stones throw from Buffalo Trace’s Manley Leestown warehouses.

This story was originally published August 26, 2022 at 1:48 PM.