As the residents of this tiny, western Illinois town waited for the state to force a beef-processing plant to clean up its offensive odors, they received a letter from a state lawyer commiserating with them for how long it was taking.
“I recognize that you people who reside in the area are the ones who suffer from the odor, and that delays in resolving the process are hardest on you,” said the letter from the Illinois attorney general’s office.
It was dated 1972.
Twenty-eight years and four attorneys general later, the state continues to battle the plant over the fetid air wafting from the sprawling slaughterhouse, rendering plant and tannery, still allegedly violating state air-pollution laws.
“I couldn’t say things have gotten better,” said James Gallaugher, an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency official who has been doing inspections at the site since 1991. “It still smells.”
The plant, owned by Nebraska-based IBP Inc., hardly has been the worst polluter in the state, and it has spent millions to eliminate odors over the years. But the IBP case is remarkable for its staying power, representing one of the most intractable environmental battles in Illinois.
It stands as a case study in the peculiar difficulty of regulating smells, a kind of pollution that defies measurement and can drift through the regulatory process like vapor. Even a state law that treats odors as pollution hasn’t settled the issue.
The company says it is not breaking the law because perceptions of the smells are “subjective,” so the charges are too. Once, IBP sent its lawyers from the Nebraska headquarters to the plant, and they couldn’t smell a thing, according to accounts contained in state documents.
The saga is so old that the plant has changed ownership twice since it began. Lawsuits over the stink have been filed and settled. Million-dollar scrubbers have been installed. Fines have been levied and paid.
But state inspection records show that every time the plant has shown improvement, inspectors later note that the air smells bad again.
So the case is now where it has been several times before: in court.
Some who have lived near the plant say the smells, which inspection documents have described as “foul rancid-grease odors,” are powerful enough to destroy Joslin, an unincorporated smattering of houses along Illinois Highway 92.
“I broke every window in my house closing windows in the middle of the night because the odors were so bad–it would wake you up from a sound sleep,” said Jan Marsden, 60, who has lived near the plant since it was built in the 1960s on land farmed by her parents and has a file cabinet full of odor logs and EPA suits.
Both sides in the case are now awaiting a decision from the Illinois Supreme Court, which is believed to be imminent. Even when it comes, however, the ruling on a legalistic point probably won’t settle the case. Instead, the decision will likely just steer future litigation as the case returns to court in Rock Island County.
Even though the company is fighting the charges in court, it still is working to solve the problem. Last week, IBP announced it will cover wastewater lagoons that have been cited as one of the primary sources of odors.
“We plan to spend millions this year on additional improvements that will further reduce odors,” said Gary Mickelson, an IBP spokesman.
He notes that this is not an admission of any violation, however.
“Since there isn’t any objective state odor standards to refer to, it is purely a subjective determination,” Mickelson said. “The bottom line, though, is we are taking every reasonable step we can as technology becomes available to reduce odors.”
Illinois law broadly classifies odors as air pollution, giving regulators authority to go after companies that degrade quality of life for people who live nearby. But the laws have no objective measures to regulate the plants.”Tell me what the standard is under Illinois state law and I will tell you if we are violating them,” said Sheila Hagen, IBP’s general counsel. “Are there odors? Yes, as there are with every other farm and every other industrial activity. But in terms of a nuisance, we would disagree.”
Illinois is one of a handful of states with air-pollution laws that include offensive odors. Cross into Iowa, just a few miles west of the Joslin plant, and no such law is in place.
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The laws are especially problematic, though, because the technology is not available to make objective measurements of smells.
“Our biggest problem in air-pollution control is odor,” said the state EPA’s Gallaugher. “We don’t have an odor meter. All we have is the nose on the end of the face.”
But that doesn’t make the problem any less real.
“It robs the people of the use of their property in a normal manner,” Gallaugher said. “Some of our citizens have been driven off their property.”
The plant is one of the largest meat-processing facilities in the Midwest, employing 2,200 people and generating a $58 million payroll.
Each day, about 3,000 head of cattle are walked off trucks into what amounts to a factory. Out the other end comes meat, tanned leather, fertilizers and an assortment of byproducts.
This also produces a complex brew of odors that the Illinois EPA has found especially difficult to identify, describe and regulate.
“Part of our problem has been identifying the sources of the odors,” Gallaugher said. “We have been stressing that for years, trying to get IBP to identify and quantify the sources of the odors.”
It is not easy for anyone to describe the smell. Even though she lived with the smell, Marsden, like almost everyone, has problems characterizing it.
“Have you ever tried to eat a meal with the most horrid smell in the world in your face? It hits you in the middle of your forehead. I don’t know how to explain it.”
For two decades, Marsden was the plant’s most vocal foe, living in a neat ranch house just down the road from the facility. She refused to move, saying she wouldn’t be chased out.
Eventually, though, she moved to a property about six miles from the plant, but she wouldn’t move any farther.
“This is my home. I was here first. I don’t feel like I should leave. We were here long before any businessmen decided to screw up my life.”
Perhaps time has gilded Jan Marsden’s memory of Joslin a few decades ago, but she recalls a pleasant western Illinois town. “It was a neighborhood,” she said. “Everybody knew everybody.
“They ruined it. Just ruined it.”
Even some who stuck around say things have changed. “We’ve lost lots of good neighbors,” said Charles Wilkins, who still lives there.
The state has filed several enforcement actions and lawsuits against the plant and its various owners over the years.
In 1994, a court case ended when IBP agreed to improve operations and pay a $30,000 fine because of odors.
Another complaint was filed by the Illinois attorney general’s office at the request of the state EPA in 1997 and has been working its way slowly through the Illinois courts.
During a trial in Rock Island Circuit Court last year, IBP’s lawyers tried to convince the judge that the state didn’t have the right to bring the case based on odors. The judge ruled with the state, IBP appealed, and the case has been stalled ever since.
“We’re anxious to get this case moving again,” said Rebecca Burlingham, senior assistant in the environmental bureau of the Illinois attorney general’s office. “Our hands are tied while the appeal is going on, but we’ll get right back into this.”