EPA Says Rendering Plant Has Yet to Clean Up Its Act: State Inspection Notes Spills, Smells, Maggots at Inland Products
By Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Jan. 14–A South Side rendering plant has failed to live up to a 6-yearold court order to reduce foul odors, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency officials have decided.
An EPA report, released yesterday, notes that Inland Products has been taken to task by the state because of odor problems three times since 1978.
The state could order Inland to fix things a fourth time.
The EPA also could ask the state attorney general’s office to take Inland to court again, said Craig Butler, administrator of the EPA’s central district.
“It’s a significant problem for us,” Butler said. “They need to fix it.”
Inland attorney Craig Denmead declined to comment, saying he needed to see the report first.
He said the company has been working with the agency to resolve odor problems and other issues.
Inland takes grease and used cooking oils from restaurants, as well as animal carcasses, and turns them into tallow and other products that can be sold for use in cosmetics and animal feeds.
Located near Frank Road and I-71 north of the city’s Jackson Pike sewage treatment plant, the plant often has been the subject of complaints from South Side residents, who say it produces foul odors.
The EPA’s most recent issues with Inland began in June, when a series of inspections found spilled fuel oil and grease, and materials teeming with maggots.
The agency also investigated a bulldozer-dug trench on the property designed to handle stormwater runoff.
During that inspection, the agency photographed broken doors and holes in the plant’s walls and roof.
After a December inspection, the agency accused Inland of violating state open-dumping laws when it left piles of decaying material on the ground for more than seven days.
Butler said the broken doors and holes, along with malfunctioning pollution-control equipment, violate a court-ordered settlement from February 2000 that was intended to end odor problems.
The report said it will take a “significant capital investment” to fix air-pollution issues given the “deteriorated condition of the facility and associated equipment.”
Butler said a decision about the next step could take weeks or months.
The agency was required to file this report and take action after it received 28 written complaints from residents, environmental advocates and local government officials. Among them was the Franklin County Board of Health, which filed a complaint Dec. 1.
“We wanted to make certain that EPA was doing everything it could to get this nuisance abated,” said Paul Wenning, a special projects coordinator at the Board of Health.
Teresa Mills, a Grove City resident and environmental advocate who also filed a complaint, said the EPA should move faster and do more than order Inland to fix things.
“I think the state should go in there and immediately close them down,” Mills said. “They’ve already been there three times.”
shunt@dispatch.com
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