By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — State officials will wait until next week for a response that will determine if a Carthage firm will have to pay another fine for excessive odors.
Renewable Environmental Solutions was cited just more than two weeks ago by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for odors registered Dec. 12 from the plant that converts turkey byproducts into crude oil and other materials.
The firm has 15 days to respond to the DNR with an explanation on what may have caused the odors.
That response had not been received as of Friday, but state officials are expecting it, according to Renee Bungart, a DNR spokeswoman.
“Their attorney contacted us and said they would be making a response,” she said.
She said the firm had 15 days to respond after it received the citation that DNR sent by mail.
“We usually let the response time go a little bit over, especially with the holidays,” Bungart said. “We’re expecting to get something next week.”
The firm in early December agreed to pay a $25,000 fine stemming from a Nov. 14 odor violation, under terms of a court-ordered consent judgment.
The penalty was assessed under provisions of the judgment in the wake of a public-nuisance lawsuit filed against RES by the city of Carthage and Attorney General Jay Nixon.
The state settled the lawsuit in June, and the company agreed to pay $25,000 each for any odor violation assessed by the state in a two-year period. The company also agreed to pay $100,000 in civil penalties.
As with the earlier penalty, RES must provide to the state information about a potential startup, shutdown or equipment malfunction that may have been responsible for the Dec. 12 odor citation
If the situation meets those criteria, the department may not take further action. If it does not, DNR will upgrade the notice of excess emissions to a notice of violation. In either case, RES must take action to correct the odor problem.
‘Proactive’
When the Nov. 14 notice was elevated to trigger the earlier fine, the DNR wrote to plant officials that “RES needs to be more proactive and aggressive in discovering and eliminating potential problems before excessive emissions result,” said Renee Bungart, a DNR spokeswoman.
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State officials wait for reply from RES
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