Rural residents rally against meatpacking waste facility in mid-Missouri

MACON, Mo. — An out-of-state company should be denied a permit to operate a storage lagoon for animal waste collected at meatpacking plants around the Midwest, residents of a central Missouri county told state regulators Monday.

At a packed and sometimes raucous meeting, an estimated 200 farmers, longtime residents and local lawmakers told the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to reject a permit sought by Denali Waste Solutions to use the newly built lagoon in Randolph County to store the sludge.

“No way in hell are they ever going to dump this crap on me,” said John Luecke, a farmer who owns land adjacent to the proposed facility near Jacksonville.

Denali, which collects waste for companies like Tyson Foods, Conagra Brands and Perdue Farms, wants to use a storage site that will hold up to 15 million gallons of dead animal material and similar waste associated with the meatpacking industry.

The Arkansas-based company typically gives the material away to farmers for free, pumping it into the topsoil and calling it fertilizer. But, they have faced fines and complaints in Missouri and other states for overflowing lagoons, leakage into creeks and strong odors.

DNR Director Dru Buntin, whose agency regulates water and air pollution, signaled the state is limited in its ability to stop the facility based on concerns about odor, traffic or a decrease in land values surrounding the pit.

And, DNR officials told the audience that the plans conform to the state’s design standards.

“It is not expected to leak,” said Cindy LePage, an environmental program manager.

Denali also is prohibited from spreading the slurry during rain events or when the ground is frozen to limit its spread into nearby waterways or other farmland.

Local residents weren’t buying it.

Residents said the company is masquerading as an agribusiness company when they are, instead, a wastewater treatment company, allowing it to take advantage of environmental regulations designed to encourage farming and meatpacking.

“Denali is trying to work the system,” said Karen McAllister, who lives on a farm less than a mile away from the lagoon.

The project has led to the creation of a group called “Citizens of Randolph County Against Pollution,” or C.R.A.P. Money has been raised and an environmental attorney, Stephen Jeffery, has been hired.

Randolph County Presiding Commissioner Sidney Conklin also vowed to oppose the permit.

“We don’t want it in Randolph County,” Conklin said.

Lawmakers suggested that the issue needs to be addressed in the coming legislative session.

At the same time Republican leaders in the state are encouraging the meatpacking industry to bring jobs to Missouri, there are gaps in environmental laws that need to be closed.

“This is an issue we’ve got to take seriously,” said Rep. Sarah Unsicker, a Democrat from Shrewsbury who is running for attorney general.

Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, said he’s received 150 letters and emails with all but one opposing the lagoon.

“I hope that it never does get filled,” Lewis said to cheers from the audience.

Farmer Greg Jaecques apologized to his neighbors for allowing Denali to spread the waste on his row crop fields in 2020, saying the process was not helpful.

“I saw no benefit. It was just a way to get rid of their sludge,” Jaecques said.

The company, which did not respond to a request for comment, says it will transport sludge to the lagoon via sealed tanker trucks, with some possibly coming from out of state. The trucks will pull along the side of the lagoon and the truck driver will attach a flexible hose to the truck valve and to an unloading pipe that discharges into the lagoon, the application notes.

The company’s application says that the material is expected to form a grease cap that “minimizes the exchange of odorous gases.”

Public comments on the project close Tuesday and DNR will make a decision on the permit in the coming weeks.