CARTHAGE, Mo. — Chances are “better than even” that Renewable Environmental Solutions, the rendering operation that for years was the source of almost steady odor complaints, will resume operations, Mayor Mike Harris said Tuesday.

Harris said company officials said the plant will process used grease and oil. He said that while they would not rule out the eventual processing of leftovers from slaughterhouse operations, they said it would be an “odor-free operation.”

Click here to learn more about Changing World Technologies, the parent company of Renewable Environmental Solutions.

Skepticism

“I told them I’m from Missouri, and they’d have to show me,” the mayor said.

He was not alone in his lack of confidence.

Tricia Orr, who lives north of Carthage and contacted the state a number of times with RES odor complaints, said she has been concerned about reports that the plant would resume operations. She said she is not reassured by pledges that the plant can operate without generating odors, and she gave a reaction almost verbatim to that of the mayor.

“All I can say is that I’m from Missouri, and they would have to show me,” she said.

Harris offered his assessment of the plant’s chances during a meeting of the Carthage City Council. He said it was based on discussions in recent meetings with officials of the plant that, until March 2009, rendered poultry parts to produce biodiesel fuel and other materials.

The mayor cited two meetings in the past week, one with plant officials and another with plant officials and potential investors who are considering backing a plant start-up. He said officials still are working to line up financing and are offering no timeline on when the plant might resume operations.

Jim Crum, plant manager, on Wednesday agreed with the mayor’s assessment. He said financing for the operation is still being sought.

“The potential is great, but nothing is definite,” he said. “We don’t have a date for anything to happen.”

Harris said company officials “were very open with me” in the discussions that he said left him “cynical, but hopeful.”

“I’d like to see them reopen, with an odor-free operation, because Carthage needs the jobs,” he said. “But I told them if there was an odor problem, I’d do everything in my power to shut them down.”

‘Down the road’

Crum said the “intent, down the road, is to bring some agricultural products back on line” because it would give local farmers a place “to get rid of products that can’t go into the landfill, and there is potential there to produce a good fertilizer.”

When asked about a pledge to the mayor that the plant will operate odor-free, Crum responded, “Absolutely; we will be a good industry.”

Harris said he feels more positive about the company because the plant manager, personnel director and other officers live in Carthage.

“It won’t be like somebody coming in and saying there isn’t a problem, then flying back to the East Coast,” he said.

Financial problems shut the operation down in March 2009, just before Changing World Technologies, the RES parent company, filed for bankruptcy protection, citing debt and other difficulties. Fifty workers lost their jobs as a result.

The plant had been a source of odor complaints since it opened in 2004. It received multiple citations from the state, and at one point, former Gov. Matt Blunt ordered the plant closed until it could control odors.

In 2005, Carthage joined the Missouri attorney general’s office in filing a public-nuisance lawsuit against RES. The action was settled, and RES installed a thermal oxidizer and other odor-control equipment that company officials said addressed the problem. But complaints continued. The city lobbied the state to impose stricter odor controls, then adopted its own odor control ordinance. The measure is stricter than state standards, in which enforcement is triggered if odors are detected at a 7-to-1 dilution. Carthage purchased a Nasal Ranger, the same equipment as that used by the state, and set the standard at a 5-to-1 dilution.

The company maintained that it was not the source of odors after controls were installed as a result of the lawsuit. But neighbors said the odors stopped only when the plant was shut down.

The RES plant also is the subject of a lawsuit filed by two Carthage residents who contend that the company was negligent in allowing odor problems. The suit, seeking class-action status that would compensate those who have been affected by odors from RES, was stayed as a result of the bankruptcy filing.





Ordinance



Under an ordinance adopted by the Carthage council in January 2009, entities convicted of violating city odor standards are subject to a fine of not less than $500 per day.