January 27, 2009 11:19 pm
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By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Carthage City Council listened to protests Tuesday night from an attorney representing Renewable Environmental Solutions, then unanimously adopted an ordinance that could, in the future, impose new city odor regulations on the company.
Mayor Jim Woestman, in a phone interview after the council’s meeting, said there was an open discussion among council members and Stan Sexton, a Kansas City attorney who represents the biofuels company.
“We still want to get along, but they stink,” Woestman said.
The mayor said Sexton suggested that representatives of all the companies in the city’s industrial area “get together and study the whole situation.”
That has happened, to a degree, under efforts organized earlier by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in response to Carthage’s odor problems.
Woestman said he has no objection to a cooperative effort, but that the city is not willing to back off on a new ordinance that would impose stricter odor standards than current state rules, and impose fines when industries are found guilty of violations.
The council has approved the purchase of an odor-measuring device, and the ordinance sets the dilution ratio for violations at 5-to-1. Companies now can be found in violation of state rules if they emit odors that are detectable at a dilution of 7-to-1. Woestman said the measure won’t go into effect immediately, because the equipment won’t arrive until next month, and city workers will have to be trained.
City officials believe the state standard of 7-to-1 is too lenient, and that a 4-to-1 dilution probably would be too strict.
“We can always amend it, and we explained that,” the mayor said.
Woestman said Sexton argued, inaccurately, that Carthage does not have the authority to impose the new rules because it is not a home-rule-charter city.
“We have the authority to do what the council passed,” said City Attorney Nate Dally.
“It’s better if everyone can be within the law, rather than citing people. I think most of us still are hopeful we can work together and create a good solution.”
Odors from the city’s industrial bottoms on Tuesday prompted three complaints to the DNR’s Springfield office, but the state did not have a worker available to measure the extent of the smells because of the icy roads, said Victoria Lovejoy, public information officer with the Springfield office.
“We don’t have anyone at the Carthage office today,” she said. “The state is under a hazardous-travel policy that gives staff the option of taking personal leave if it would be difficult for them to get to work. The employee who works in that office did that because they live pretty far away.”
Officials started work on the city measure after the Missouri Air Conservation Commission decided against any changes in the dilution threshold that triggers state enforcement action. Woestman repeatedly lobbied the commission and an odor work group for rule changes that would help the city’s situation.
There have been no state-cited violations based on odors from the Carthage industrial bottoms since 2006, though Carthage-area residents have made dozens of complaints about odors, most citing RES as the source.
In some cases, DNR inspectors also noted the odors, but not at the 7-to-1 dilution that would trigger a violation.
Misdemeanor
Under the measure, a company or individual found guilty of violating the regulation would be subject to a fine of not less than $500 per day.
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