Maryland State Police and fire crews recovered the bodies of three Pennsylvania men early Thursday from a manure pit at a Kent County dairy farm.
Police have tentatively identified the victims as Glen W. Nolt, 48, the father, and his two teen-aged sons, Kelvin R. Nolt, 18, and Cleason S. Nolt, 14. The three were found submerged in the 20-foot-deep pit at Centerdel Farm in Kennedyville. The Peach Bottom, Pa., residents were last seen about 2 p.m. Wednesday and were reported missing by concerned family members about 6 p.m., when they did not return to their own farm for milking.
“They are farmers, too, who do their own custom work pumping out manure pits,” said Laura Phitts, who has run the 200-acre farm on Vansant Corner Road since 1992 and currently oversees 180 cows. “They often work all night long on their own, so I was not alarmed, when I noticed the pump kept running.
“But when they didn’t return to their own farm to milk, the family really became alarmed,” she said.
Rescue crews found the father’s pick-up truck and a tractor, both still running, at about 8 p.m. near the septic pond, which holds about 2 million gallons of animal waste. The three had been working with an augur or conveyor, which was hooked to the tractor. The equipment keeps the manure in the pit swirling as it pulls it out and sprays it on the ground to dry so it can be spread on farm fields.
The Nolts typically work at Centerdel Farm about three times a year and had already pumped the pit in March, Phitts said.
“They are a Mennonite family, really great people and really hard workers,” Phitts said. “Many of them were here all night waiting for news with the police and fire crews.”
Heavy-duty vacuuming equipment was brought in late Wednesday night from a neighboring farm in an effort to empty the pit, which is about 150 feet wide and 300 feet long. The first body was recovered at 1:15 a.m. A second was found at 4 a.m. and the last body was pulled from the pit at 5:45 a.m., police said.
“There really is no way to know what happened,” said Phitts.
There were no witnesses and the pit is in an isolated area of the large dairy operation, police said. The deaths appear to be accidental, police said. But investigators will wait for autopsy results, before ruling out foul play, said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police spokesman.
Mary Gail Hall, The Baltimore Sun
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