Pilgrim's Pride polluting their community in East Texas

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Story: Pilgrim's Pride dumping chicken parts in East Texas landfill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pilgrim's Pride dumping chicken parts in East Texas landfill

 

03:37 PM CDT on Sunday, August 3, 2008

Associated Press

 

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas -- A processing plant has begun dumping chicken byproducts into an East Texas industrial landfill, causing a stench and angering residents who say they live "in the line of fire."

"It's not neighborly to be dumping so much waste that it stinks up the countryside for over half a mile," said Scott Thompson, who lives near the landfill.

Thompson told the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune for a story in its Sunday editions that the stink from chicken parts is "so strong that it gave me a headache and made me nauseous."

Since at least Monday, the Pilgrim's Pride processing plant in Mount Pleasant has been legally dumping most of its chicken byproducts into a 20-acre regulated industrial landfill in Camp County, state environmental officials said.

Pittsburg, Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride received a permit to use the landfill about 20 years ago, but only started using the site as a dumping ground last week after its Mount Pleasant protein conversion plant -- where chicken byproducts are usually sent -- caught fire July 21. A backup plan to use a third-party site for disposal of leftover chicken parts failed when there was a fire there as well, Pilgrim's Pride spokesman Ray Atkinson told the newspaper.

That forced the company, the nation's largest chicken producer, to use the landfill in Camp County. Atkinson said Pilgrim's Pride will soon divert at least 90 percent of the byproducts to other permitted landfills in Camp and Titus counties.

"We do understand people's concerns. We want to be a good neighbor and it is costing us a considerable amount of money to find other solutions around this," Atkinson said. "I want to stress this isn't normal business practice. This is not something we wanted to do."

Residents also said they were concerned about waste from the landfill leaking into area groundwater. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed that the 20-year-old permit for dumping at the landfill does not require lining the pits to prevent runoff. Similar permits today would require a liner, TCEQ spokesman Terry Clawson said.

But the pits contain "good clay" that should prevent runoff, Clawson said.