City council cries ‘fowl’: Conversation centers on chicken plants

By Andrea Bruner, White River Now

It’s a topic on most residents’ minds – or at least in their noses – and Tuesday night, Mayor Rick Elumbaugh brought it front and center to the Batesville City Council meeting.

The odor emanating from the city’s two poultry plants, which also happen to be two of the largest employers in Independence County, is a longstanding (if sporadic) given, and it’s something that citizens comment on and question time and time again.

Even city officials are looking for answers.

In 2019, Elumbaugh sent a letter to the poultry plants requesting necessary upgrades to minimize the smell, but, as he said, “It’s been challenging.”

“Over the years, they have made some upgrades, and they have shared some of those with us,” Elumbaugh said. “We know how valuable they are to economic development in our community; they employ a lot of folks, and all we’re asking for is for them to do is be good stewards.”

He said he recently checked with Ozark Mountain Poultry (now owned by George’s Inc.), who stated that two to three years ago, they were planning to build a new treatment plant.

But when he talked with OMP’s attorney on Monday of this week, the attorney said the volume does not indicate a need for a new treatment plan.

“I text every day, there’s a bad day (for the smell), so they’re aware of it,” Elumbaugh said.

The mayor said he has also built a relationship with Peco Foods Inc.

Elumbaugh said there is a misconception that the city gives the poultry plants water, which the city does not do.

Public Works Engineer Damon Johnson said every water customer in the city is charged a minimum price for the first 1,000 gallons of water based on the size of the water meter (and size is based on whether they are a residential or industrial customer, as a residential customer has a smaller meter than an industrial).

For a residential customer, that minimum price is $13.30 (not including sewer use, trash pickup, or taxes) a month.

Each poultry plant has an 8-inch meter, and their base charge for the first 1,000 gallons of water is $2,126.10.

This just affects OMP and Peco. Johnson said Custom Craft Poultry is on the Pfeiffer water system and thus has different rates.

Johnson stressed that every customer in the city limits pays the same rate based on the volume of water used in a month. The rate does drop, or step down, with so many gallons of water used.

“There is no special rate for anybody. You get a volume discount (with more water used). The more you use, the more discount you get,” he said.

He did say the only two customers who reach 2 million gallons a month and get that particular step-down or discounted rate are OMP and Peco. “Not even the hospital has 2 million gallons of water a month on any individual meter,” he noted.

“This rate structure was developed 30 or 40 years ago, and my assumption is that it was set up this way as an incentive for those companies to grow and stay here,” Johnson said.

He also said Springdale and many other water utilities, particularly those with food processing industries, have rate structures with step-downs like this. “It’s very common, in other words. Their step-downs might be in other places, of course. Their price per 1,000 is based on their operational expenses and their water sales. There are lots of variables.”

“In terms of conserving natural resources, it sounds like you’re rewarding people for using more,” Alderman Scott Fredricks said, to which Johnson said the companies are required to use a minimum amount of water per bird processed.

“So they’re not really allowed to be conservationists,” said Johnson, who said he is not an expert on poultry processing, nor did he know how many birds are processed in Batesville. “But I know they would use a lot less water if they could.”

He said he did not want to say in a public meeting how many gallons each uses because it is proprietary to their business.

He did say that in the early 2000s, Peco put in a water reuse system and determined it was not cost-effective for them.

Johnson said if the city were to change the rate structure, it would also have to redo the rate study, which was just finished a year or two ago. Alderman Lackey Moody asked how much the rate study cost, and Johnson replied that he did not remember the exact cost but estimated it to be between $100,000 and $150,000.

Alderman Landon Reeves asked if the city has complete autonomy over rates or if there is any government oversight. Johnson said Arkansas had set forth Act 605, and that is the only oversight, but it does not set rates for the utilities.

“They want your rates to be high enough where you are able to have a certain percentage set aside, so if you have an operational problem, you have cash set aside to deal with it,” he said.

“We need to weigh all the consequences of that and no matter what anybody says, we do not want those two plants to go away,” Johnson stressed to the council, “so we do not want to act in such an aggressive manner that they go away.”

From the water utility standpoint alone, that would mean “serious consequences,” he said. The city broke ground earlier this year on a multi-million-dollar water treatment plant to replace the current 1960s infrastructure. “That would be detrimental to our community, just from what I manage, not the other things that it would touch. So we have to be smart, is what I’m saying. We have to work together as a group if they’re willing, and try to make them understand — We need y’all to cooperate and be a team player. Sometimes it’s hard to get through to the corporate mindset of that.”

Elumbaugh agreed, saying, “Corporate gets a little defensive when you start prying more, but like I said, that’s our obligation. We definitely want them to be a good steward, but we’re investing $25 million across the road from them. I’ve met with them, and you won’t find any nicer individuals to work with, but at the end of the day, we have a community that is aggravated, and a lot of times, they feel like we’re not doing enough. But like (Johnson) said, there’s not an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulation.”

Johnson said several people have asked why the city doesn’t regulate the odor or have a nuisance ordinance regarding the odor.

He said some states – Texas is one – do have statutes that have regulations about nuisance odors, but “There’s nothing in Arkansas law that affords anyone to regulate anything regarding nuisance odor anywhere.”

Furthermore, Arkansas code states that communities cannot enact or enforce their own air pollution regulations, which are solely within the state’s control. “When other cities in the state try to do this, they pretty much immediately lose because of this,” Johnson said.

Elumbaugh said this being an agricultural state, the Legislature is going to protect the rights of farmers and agricultural industries.

Alderman Fred Krug asked which plant causes the odor, and Johnson said he believed it was both, but each blames the other.

“But you can go to Springdale, and they don’t have that problem,” he said, explaining that he believes it is a “solvable problem … but it’s up to them to do that.”

He said the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has been called many times by citizens in the community, and his understanding is that the ADEQ has not found anything harmful to humans. “They don’t regulate nuisances – only what they determine to be harmful – when it comes to air pollution, so that’s why they don’t do anything. So we’re kind of stuck in this weird limbo where Arkansas law, like the mayor said, protects the agri industry, including nuisance odors.”

Alderman Robb Roberts said that to start addressing the problem, it would be helpful to start measuring it. If other states monitor and regulate the odor, they must have the ability to measure it. If the technology does measure it, then it stands to reason that the sensors that measure it could also triangulate on the source.

“Not that you could write a ticket for it, I’m not saying that, but understanding where it’s coming from would be helpful,” Roberts said.

Johnson said that at one time, the city considered doing a study. “There are companies out there that will do a study, what you are talking about. The proposal that we reviewed once was about $150,000, and that’s been six or eight years ago.”

Elumbaugh said even if one plant is causing more odor or most of the odor, what would the city’s next step be?

Roberts said he would like the city to sit down with representatives from the plants, as well as someone trusted from the community, to act as a facilitator and discuss the issue, even though he realizes it will not be solved in one meeting.

Alderman Lackey Moody asked what intensifies the odor, and Johnson said this was only his opinion, but he believes it is the sludge handling. The poultry plants treat their wastewater (rather than dumping raw sewage water in the city’s system), but any wastewater treatment creates a residual material known as “sludge.” In this case, the sludge is stored inside one of the buildings and builds up until the tanks are full and ready to be emptied. The tanks are hauled off in trucks to be disposed of off-site.

Johnson said there is something called “air exchange” that occurs during the process of moving the sludge in containment to a truck, and that air exchange is likely the cause of the odor, barring a plant upset or problem.

He said there were times that was done “in the wee hours of the night when there were fewer people moving around,” but the cool air moving off the river doesn’t help, either.

Elumbaugh said there is another problem – the third-party company that hauls off the plants’ renderings has spilled some of the contents. The police department has been called, but the company representative drove off. The police followed up by calling the company, which in turn said the driver would be fired. Elumbaugh said that when such a complaint is issued, the city will be following up either with the poultry company, the police department, or both.

Johnson clarified that there are certain materials (such as chicken fat, skin, and organs) that the city does not permit into its wastewater system. Those are hauled in containers stored in open-top trucks. “They are not supposed to drive through town, but they do, and if they are on Harrison Street and some little car cuts in front of them, and they slam on their brakes, that stuff sloshes out over the top into the roadway. It’s a horrible mess and it stinks,” but unfortunately, the driver will keep going, and after that, it’s hard to track someone down.

In other business Tuesday night:

–The council heard the second reading of an ordinance modifying the water and sewer services.

Johnson stressed the regular usage rates are not changing.

“It’s just a small section that deals with the cutoff fees, when we turn (services) back on, when they get cut off — some procedural things we’ve cleaned up,” Johnson said. “There’s some things that don’t work in the real world,” and this ordinance is a reflection of a more efficient way of conducting business for the city water and sewer departments.

He said the changes are minor.

The council agreed to suspend the rules and waive the third reading, then adopted the ordinance with an emergency clause, thus making it effective immediately.

–The council adopted by resolution the city’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan.

The resolution states that from 2018 to 2022, there were 2,422 crashes within the city limits, and seven people died in crash-related deaths in that five-year period, and 43 had serious injuries.

The plan calls for a goal of reducing crash-related fatalities and serious injuries by 50 percent or more by 2035 and reducing the number of fatal crashes or those causing serious injuries to zero by 2045.

Johnson reminded the council that the city was awarded a planning grant from the Safe Streets and Roads for All federal initiative two years ago, and the city does include a federal highway.

“The point is to study our road system and look at our significant injuries and deaths, and to create a plan to reduce those to zero over time. It’s not a short-term plan – it’s a long-term plan,” he said.

He said the city has gathered information over the last two years, and now that the city has received a planning grant and come up with an action plan, it means a higher likelihood of receiving funding to implement the plans.

–The council authorized the mayor to apply for a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration on behalf of the city’s airport commission.

The resolution states that the Batesville Regional Airport needs a geotechnical study and design for next year’s runway/taxiway infrastructure project. Specifically, this project will target improving the pavement and supporting layers beneath Runway 8-26, parallel Taxiway A, and Stub Taxiways.

–During the mayor’s comments, Elumbaugh reminded everyone that the city had an expenditure from the perpetual maintenance account for slide restoration at the community center swimming pool, but that turned out to be only half of the amount, and now another $28,000 is needed.

Furthermore, the heated therapy pool had to be replastered, and the play pool also had to be resurfaced, totaling just over $63,140.

After these two expenditures, the balance in the perpetual maintenance account will be about $686,330.

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Alderwomen Brittany Bennett and Julie Hinkle were absent. There were no comments from citizens and no comments from the council.

Image: White River Now