State Agrees To Investigate Waste Company’s Practices

ANDERSON — At least 50 nearby residents demanded tighter environmental scrutiny of a waste-spreading operation near here operated by a Springdalebased business.

They will get it, Missouri Department of Natural Resources officials promised at a meeting Tuesday night.

“This is a big deal,” said Cindy Davies, director of the department’s southwest regional office in Springfield. Residents attending the meeting insisted the operation has devastated local streams, polluted the air and generated thousands of trips by heavy trucks.

The group centered on this small Missouri town of about 2,000 people held a meeting in Anderson with department officials, their state representative and county commissioners.

Davies told the group the department will step up monitoring of the site and for them to notify the department if and when they see runoff coming from the site when there is no rain. That would be the best time to catch a violation if there is one, she said.

Bub’s Inc. of Tontitown and related business Oil Harvest LLC have contracts to take “biosolids,” or organic wastes, from companies including a meat packing plant in Kansas and a sauce and seasoning company in Rogers, according to information provided by the department.

They apply the material as sprayed liquids to a 544-acre site in Anderson under a Missouri law allowing the use of such material for fertilizer for agricultural operations, according to the department. A spokesman for Bub’s said Tuesday by telephone his superior would have to answer any questions. He confirmed later Tuesday that his superior had received the message. The call was not returned.

“I don’t see it as agriculture when what they apply is killing everything,” said Angela Davidson, whose property adjoins Bub’s site. Other than neighbors’ cattle and Davidson’s own small goat herd being allowed to graze there, residents insisted they never saw any farming use of the land except the clearing of trees. The land was mainly pasture before Bub’s started operating there in November 2015, neighbors said.

Excessive or harmful runoff into streams would be a violation of Missouri regulations, the department’s officials said. If problems are proven and if they persist, that “may result in permitting requirements, orders to cease operations, penalties or other enforcement actions,” according to materials provided to residents at the meeting.

“The air we breathe stinks,” said Maria Poulides, one of the organizers of the meeting whose property also adjoins Bub’s site. “Once crystal-clear streams are oily and that stuff floats on the top of the water.”

Bub’s has a history of violations with land application in Arkansas before the company opened its Missouri operation, Poulides said and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality records confirm.

“Reading the Arkansas file brought me to tears,” she said. “We understand if they want it on their own land, they have the right,” she said. “But this is not being a good neighbor or a good steward of the land.”

Waste is being applied responsibly by other companies in McDonald County, county commissioner John Bunch told the meeting. While every such operation draws a few complaints from neighbors at first, he said, Bub’s is the only one causing ongoing cries for help.

Once-abundant crawfish, snails and salamanders have disappeared from local creeks, residents told state officials. Resident Corine Whited counted tanker truck traffic from the site, according to Poulides. Whited’s figure 9,672 trips coming and going in the past year. Those were trips during daylight hours, Poulides said, not counting traffic at night.

“If this stuff is so safe and such good fertilizer, why do they have such a hard time getting rid of it?” Poulides asked. Why do other customers not apply more of it to other sites?

Heather Peters, who oversees the fertilizer regulation for the department, said the residents raise a question her department will research: Can a company apply these products, claiming an agricultural fertilizer exemption, if no agricultural goods are produced? Her division will start researching that immediately and should have an answer soon, she told the group.

Meeting attendees told state Rep. Dirk Deaton, R-Noel, that if the Department of Natural Resources needs more enforcement power they would support efforts to get it through the Missouri Legislature. Deaton gave those residents his contact information.

Bunch encouraged the group to work with the department and keep encouraging lawmakers to act.

“Getting in a room and venting is not going to get you anywhere,” he said.

Resident Janie Plummer, whose property also adjoins the site, said she no longer allows her grandchildren to go to the creeks. She presented the Natural Resources officials with bags of waste taken from her property, including some she believes to be human waste. She and other residents said they have called attention to this problem for years.

“We’ve done our part,” Plummer said. “Now we want you to do your part.”