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Shrimp farmer battles the city
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
An East Side shrimp farmer’s battle with the city goes to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court with an 11 a.m. Friday hearing before Judge John M. Durkin on the farmer’s request for a preliminary injunction to keep the city from interfering with his farm.
The farmer, Ronald S. Eiselstein, is seeking the relief after he pleaded innocent May 24 in municipal court to a citation for failure to obtain a zoning permit to operate his farm.
Eiselstein started his shrimp farm last June by putting 3,000 juvenile shrimp into a quarter-acre pond he created off Karl Street.
He ordered 40,000 shrimp this year, according to a court document. In this climate, the growing season is June through September, limiting growers to one harvest annually.
Anthony Farris, deputy city law director, said Eiselstein applied for a zoning permit for one lot for the shrimp farm but hasn’t paid his $10 permit fee and hasn’t received site approval from Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.
In addition to operating the farm on that lot, Farris said Eiselstein has expanded his operation to four additional lots, for which he hasn’t applied for zoning permits.
“He’s just tearing up this land, messing up the grading, causing erosion, forming these pools on the land so he can put the shrimp in there,” Farris said. Farris acknowledged that he has never visited the farm. Shasho declined to comment because of the pending legal dispute.
“There’s no damage to the land,” Eiselstein said, adding that his land is zoned residential with agriculture as a permitted use.
Eiselstein said he has been advised on civil-engineering issues since he started the farm by Ted Heineman, an Ohio-licensed professional engineer, who managed all of Aqua Ohio’s local lakes before his retirement.
Eiselstein said his farm was established using advice from experts at Ohio State University and the Ohio Aquaculture Association.
An Ohio Environmental Protection Agency inspector who visited the shrimp farm said no OEPA permit would be needed as long as the farm doesn’t exceed one acre, which it hasn’t done yet, Eiselstein said.
“They need to get a qualified engineer to make those comments, rather than an attorney,” Eiselstein said. “What does Atty. Farris know about aquaculture?” he asked.
Eiselstein said he had never before heard of the city’s $10 permit fee.