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December 22, 2005

No decision on intervention

Group to measure plant's cleanup efforts

By
Record-Eagle business editor

photo Record-Eagle/Keith King
Roberta and Jerry Kolak live in Williamsburg on Elk Lake near Williamsburg Receiving and Storage Co.’s fruit processing plant. "It’s embarrassing to have people come over and ask, ‘What’s that smell?’" Jerry said.
      WILLIAMSBURG - Whitewater Township officials will sit on a plea - for now - to intervene in long-festering environmental woes at Williamsburg Receiving and Storage Co.'s fruit processing plant.
      The township board took no action this week on a local environmental group's request to ask state regulators and the Attorney General's office for action on continued pollution violations at WRS's cherry processing plant in northern Grand Traverse County.
      Instead, the board will await a report from an ad hoc group organized by the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce to address WRS' odor problems and other state pollution compliance issues.
      The chamber group includes representatives of the company, neighbors, local fruit growers, the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council, township board and other interests.
      The Whitewater board wants a status report from the group by Jan. 31. The decision followed extended comments from neighbors upset about years-old odor problems and other environmental violations at WRS - and from several area cherry growers who said the plant is critical to their farms.
      The company is trying to draw down a 4-million-gallon industrial wastewater storage lagoon that's accumulated on the site since spring. A lagoon breach last month spewed a million gallons of industrial waste across the property, prompting another spate of odor complaints from neighbors.
      WRS attorney Joseph Quandt said the company trucks wastewater to a private company in Kalkaska and received "verbal approval" to resume shipments to Reed City's sewage treatment plan. The company hopes to truck 20,000 gallons a day from the lagoon by next week, he said.
      Quandt added the company is doing a "complete remedial study" on the impact of last month's lagoon spill. A "work plan" on the cleanup will be presented to the DEQ by Dec. 31, he said, and the company will test neighboring groundwater wells for possible contamination from the spill.
      "We don't believe there is," Quandt said.
      NMEAC co-chairman Ken Smith agreed with the board's decision to hold off contacting the state for several weeks to gauge the company's proposed cleanup efforts.
      "If we have to rely on the promises of this company ... that reliance may not be justified," Smith said. "(But) we've heard some encouraging things from the company."
     

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