Recordpub.com - Stink about Nelson plant growing

By Diane Smith

Record-Courier staff writer

NELSON — Township residents continue to make a big stink about the odor coming from the U.S. Liquids plant, and township trustees have filed a lawsuit over the issue.

Meanwhile, the attorney who represents plant owner Mark Fuerst says the material generating the complaints will be gone within days, and the battle with complaining neighbors is just beginning.

Several Garrettsville residents have complained about the odor this week, saying the smell could be detected clearly on Main Street.

“They just continue to spread it on the ground with the EPA’s permission,” he said. “I don’t believe a guy two and a half miles away has the right to tell me what I can breathe. I already have enough problems as it is.”

The property on S.R. 88 in northern Nelson once housed the Bil-Mar turkey farm.

Rick Patrick, village council president, said he could smell the aroma faintly Wednesday morning, but the smell was overwhelming later in the day. Residents complained, both in phone calls to him and the mayor, and at the meeting, and the next day, Leonard called the EPA to file the complaints.

“I don’t know how people can stand it,” he said. “It’s just a sour, rotten smell. If that was my business, the EPA would be there in no time. That’s terrible that people have to live like that.”

In fact, the EPA has been at U.S. Liquids this year. The state agency stepped in to stop Fuerst’s operation in March, after hundreds of gallons of what was described as “a mix of pickle juice and stale beer” flowed into a pond and creeks downstream from Fuerst’s property. The liquid lowered the dissolved oxygen content of the creek, killing off fish and other organisms.

Attorney Daniel Lindner, who represents Fuerst, said the incident last spring was nothing more than a heavy rainstorm that sent the material into the creek.

Since then, the Fuerst has been operating under an EPA-approved plan to “knife” the remaining material into the ground.

Mike Settles of the EPA said that at first, the material was being sprayed on top of the fields, but neighbors complained that the smell was unbearable, so the process of “knifing” the material into the soil began.

He said that neighbors continue to complain to the EPA.

“Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer when you’re dealing with a huge quantity of foul-smelling material,” he said. “The sooner we get that material on the fields, the sooner we can be done with this.”

Linder said the material is spread every day that there’s no rain in the forecast. He said the rest should be spread in a matter of days, and the process would have been over months ago had his client been able to spray the material on the fields instead of the slower, more costly process of knifing it in.

“This business is 100 percent green,” he said. “It’s recycling.”

He said at first, his client wanted to sell the material to someone who could use it to make wax, but the EPA did not allow him to pursue that solution. Now, he said, the liquids are given to area farmers for animal feed, and Fuerst uses it to feed the cows and pigs on his property.

He said his client takes in only food liquids. Some have a misprint on the container, and others are close to the expiration date and while they are not expired yet, the company would rather destroy the product than put it on shelves for only a few days.

“There’s nothing being taken in that a human could not consume today,” he said, adding that his client also is hiring about 100 people.

Township trustees have filed a lawsuit against Fuerst. The amended complaint, filed this week, seeks “a preliminary and permanent injunction” that would require offensive smells to be abated, prevent the plant’s wastewater treatment facility from accepting any more liquids, and prevent the liquids from being disposed of in any way on the property.

Current trustees declined comment on the situation, claiming pending litigation.

However, Joe Leonard, who recently was elected trustee, said the situation is out of control. Leonard, who starts his term in January, lives within half a mile of the property.

He said neighbors are concerned about what is in the material and about it leaching into the water table. He said a sample was sent to the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, which found the material to have a very high led content.

“It gets on the road, and from there it gets on the cars and in the garages,” he said. “Once that happens, you’re going to be dealing with it for a very long time.”

He said often, the smell is so bad that people have to hold a cloth over their noses in order to breathe.

He said the material was supposed to be covered with lime to mask the smell, but that is not happening.

Linder, meanwhile, said his client has “a lot of loud-mouthed neighbors.”

“My client has done over and over again what is required of him,” he said. “He has been a victim of a pattern of harassment by these neighbors. Several of them will be hearing from us shortly.”