Man who complained of odor sues town he says threatened him
Source: Associated Press
David Pitt, Associated Press
Updated 3:59 pm, Thursday, March 8, 2018
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man who said his hometown smelled like "rancid dog food" because of an animal food processing plant sued the city Thursday after he says they threatened to silence him.
Josh Harms with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa filed suit in U.S. District Court asking a judge to block Sibley officials from making legal threats or taking action to force him to remove criticism from his website.
Harms created a website entitled, "Should You Move to Sibley, Iowa ?" to point out city officials' lack of action on the stench from Iowa Drying and Processing, which makes a high-protein animal food supplement from pig blood.
The company moved to a vacant building in Sibley in 2013 and Harms began publishing his protest website in 2015.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Man-who-complained-of-stench-sues-town-he-says-12738742.php
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I did jobs in a bunch of mills all over the US in the 90s, mostly before odor controls started coming in. They finally figured out they could put covers on their open tanks and that helped a lot. I remember one in SC where along with the heat and humidity, the H2S smell around town was almost unbearable to outsiders, and the only relief was in our motel rooms with the AC running at all times.
Many mill towns were literally built by the company, so they controlled city politics and attitudes.
Dog food plants are not pleasant, either. Rotting animal meat byproducts create its own unique smell.
Electrostatic precipitators and flue gas scrubbers, in paper mills, power plants, mines, cement plants and steel mills, etc. (and one dog food plant, LOL) as a field service engineer. Worked both with plant maintenance folks and also construction crews during annual outages. Always a pleasure to work with the craft people.
Also a few times, I did training sessions for the plant people. Especially in those days (80s and 90s), pollution control was considered an evil necessity by corporate personnel, so we were somewhat looked at with suspicion. In paper mills, however, out work could actually affect mill paper production, so occasionally I left the site a hero when I got the system performance up.
I only did one mill in Washington, in Camas, just across the river from Portland. Never forget looking for Mt. Hood all day and never saw it, but after leaving the plant that day to return to Portland, I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw her for the first time after flying in. I pulled over an got a better view, LOL.
I worked on the pollution issue at the Port Angeles mill with a retired Boeing engineer. He approached things differently than the usual environmentalist. He was accurate and frankly knew more about the laws than the state ecology folks. That scared them because he caught them giving passes to our polluter. He got anonymous letters from someone in the agency, telling him they knew he was correct. But they twice sent teams to meet with him to tell him he was wrong, and also because they were trying to figure out if he was a real threat. He was also a black man in a very white area so they assumed he was working for someone out of the area. But really, he was a person who had decided to use his skills for good in his retirement.
Anyway, Ecology thought they had him under control (coopted) when they asked him to serve on the board for their industrial division. Instead he was able to access the records needed to prove that approval of an air operating permit for another mill was wrong - he sued. He won. The mill had to improve their pollution controls. It was the mill in Camas, Washington!
Maybe that is what you did work on - it was in the mid-90's.
Yay for anyone who works on pollution controls!!
That indeed was about the same time period, but I don't recall the exact year. I just remember they were having performance issues in their electrostatic precipitator (ESP) and called us for help. I do recall there was a problem with heavy buildups of titanium dioxide, the brightener they add to slick papers - so that suggested they were using a lot of recycled magazines in the pulp slurry (at 70, I hope I'm recalling the right job, LOL).
Also can't recall who owned the mill at that time - I was bouncing all over the US from job to job in those years and it's mostly a blur now that I'm retired. It was the only mill I worked in in WA, but did two others in Oregon. I had some of the most fun of my career while working at the (now closed) one near Reedsport in Gardiner, OR. By fun, I mean seeing the sights up and down that beautiful coast.
I always suspected some emissions favors were passed under the table in many plants I worked in (and not just in the pulp and paper industry) to have some emissions tests changed or disregarded. In the paper industry, emissions restrictions translated into fewer tons of paper produced and in the coal-fired power industry, it's lost megawatts. However, I think it was far more common for plant managers to twist the arms of their own maintenance people to "tweak" their own stack monitors to avoid violations (and fines).
That was a cool story you related about the ex-Boeing guy, and I can appreciate the professional satisfaction he got from calling them on their game. Honestly, pollution control work is mostly a very thankless job because the corporations hate having to install and maintain the systems. Therefore, we had to sort of derive our own personal satisfaction from helping the environment. I'm sure you understand that I am sickened about what Trump's people are doing to the EPA.
to fix what is being done at EPA and deregulation.
Know this - what you did for your job helped so many people who lived around those facilities! That's a really good thing!!
Working on the air pollution controls - 14 stories up! I believe it was owned by Stone Container at the time (90s).
That is one town I loved visiting and wish I could return to on a leisure trip rather than business! Love the live oaks, beautiful old homes and sea food.
