By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — State officials continue to work with a company analyzing the source of odor in Carthage, Doyle Childers, director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said Friday.
Childers and other DNR representatives made a stop in Carthage to update city officials and residents on odor-control efforts involving Renewable Environmental Solutions and other companies in the Carthage industrial bottoms.
“We think the method being used now will give us better detail on what’s going on and allow us to identify the priority pollutants causing the odors,” Childers told a crowd of about 25 people gathered at the Carthage Chamber of Commerce. “Once we identify the pollutants, we want to work with the source and mitigate the problem.”
Carthage has been struggling with odors for several years and the problem was so bad at one point that the state ordered the RES plant to shut down temporarily. The plant converts poultry byproducts into crude oil and related materials.
“The situation has improved, but it has not abated. Our goal is to better target the problem and find a solution,” Childers said.
The DNR has received 67 odor complaints from Carthage in a three-month period ending in January, state records show.
The state has hired a Texas firm to conduct an odor study in the industrial bottoms. The firm is researching any chemical components causing the odor.
Childers said Carthage “has been hit harder than most,” but said what’s learned in Carthage also could be used to address odors from industry and concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.
Workers for Microanalytics spent five days in Carthage last year gathering odor data.
The work was contracted after Brian Appel, RES president, offered to pay for an independent study that he argued would prove his plant was not the source of recent odors.
DNR instead decided to pay for the study to maintain control of the work, Childers said, adding, “We’re going to be putting more money into finding a solution to the problem.”
Leanne Tippett Mosby, director of DNR’s division of environmental quality, said the study has reached a point that researchers need to work with local companies to gather odor components for comparison. Officials are in discussions with representatives from RES, she said.
Mosby also noted the Missouri Air Conservation Commission recently asked DNR to begin work on a draft odor rule that, if put into force, would lower the threshold that triggers the requirement that a company work with the state on an odor- abatement plan.
The revision came out of a state odor-control work group that Carthage Mayor Jim Woestman attended — to urge the lower threshold.
“We thank you, because we know you’re trying to help. But we think a fine talks louder,” the mayor told DNR officials.
Both he and Tricia Orr, a frequent critic of RES, said the problem is hurting Carthage.
“I’ve talked to people who decided not to move here because of it,” Woestman said.
“That’s why we’re hopeful this technology will help,” responded Childers.
Several in attendance noted odors allegedly from RES in recent weeks. Childers said he had heard there was an odor on Friday and he drove around the plant.
“But by the time I got there, it had dissipated,” he said.
“You should have been here last Monday, it was bad,” said Jean Blackwood, another Carthage resident.
Garrett Brower, also a Carthage resident, said he has worked in the industry to develop and sell compounds that neutralize odors in animal manure. He offered to do his own analysis, and Childers said officials will talk with him.
On the Web
The Microanalytics report on Carthage odors and other studies and information on the state’s odor control work group, are available on the Internet at dnr.mo.gov/env/apcp/odor-workgroup.
