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January 30, 2006Processing plant's environmental issues lingerOdor, spill lead to complaints, violations, finesWILLIAMSBURG -- It was a hot June day when 140 of Robbin Bustance's friends and family gathered for her daughter's graduation party at the family farmhouse near Elk Lake.An outdoor celebration was forced indoors because of a noxious smell wafting from Williamsburg Receiving and Storage's fruit processing plant a quarter-mile to the east -- a smell neighbors said has become sickeningly familiar in recent years. "It was 90 degrees outside and all my guests were forced inside because of the odor," Bustance said. "It stunk like hell ... that's embarrassing when people come up and say, 'What's that smell?'." Environmental problems at WRS, also known as Cherry Blossom LLC, extend well beyond the smell. A 4-million gallon lagoon of high-strength industrial wastewater -- the basin unleashed about 1 million gallons over the surrounding grounds during a November wind storm -- worries state and federal regulators who want it removed. The spill is the latest in a series of environmental violations that generated more than $60,000 in fines and plenty of local ill will against the company. WRS owner Chris Hubbell said wastewater problems started almost four years ago, when a consultant improperly designed a new treatment system for plant expansion. The company spent $800,000 on a wastewater recycling system that didn't reduce the strength of the wastewater, a necessity to allow the water to be irrigated around the plant. "It didn't work. It failed," Hubbell said. "It's not like we were thumbing our nose at the whole situation there." The company started to "stockpile" wastewater on-site early last year. After the November spill, WRS agreed to truck wastewater from the plant to sewer systems in Reed City and Traverse City. The company's proposal is to "batch" high-strength wastewater in a tank and haul it away, while diluted cherry wash water will be kept on-site in a lagoon and irrigated on the grounds. "We're trying to get to where we need to be," Hubbell said. "We don't want the smells here just like everyone else." "Dead animal" smell The state Department of Environmental Quality office in Cadillac is home to more than a dozen thick files on WRS, documents sprinkled with graphic complaints from plant neighbors. One woman called DEQ in mid-September to report odors so bad her children couldn't wait outside for the school bus. Others describe it as a "dead animal" smell. DEQ officials termed the odor "overwhelming" when they inspected the plant a week after the November lagoon breach. "It smelled like vomit," DEQ's Janice Heuer said in a Nov. 15 report. Roberta Kolak and her husband, Gerald, built their retirement home on Elk Lake 10 years ago. It sits about a mile west of the plant. While they didn't notice odors the first few years, they detected a problem when the plant expanded four years ago. Roberta Kolak finds herself cutting short her walks around the lake and she often spends nice days indoors to dodge the odors. "It can go from where you just barely notice it to where you can't stay outside anymore," she said. Maraschino cherries, new jobs Hubbell expanded the plant to take on a maraschino cherry-processing system for a division of Sensient Technologies, a Milwaukee-based global food and chemical company. Cherry processing work may have been lost to California without his plant expansion, Hubbell said, costing the area 50 to 60 new jobs and leaving local cherry farmers without a place to take their fruit. "I didn't originally plan on getting into maraschino cherries," he said. "I was happy doing what we were doing ... but (work) was headed to the West Coast. It would've been a major impact to Michigan growers." Hubbell contends his company is the second-largest sweet cherry processor in Michigan that works with maraschino cherries. Several area cherry farmers pleaded the plant's case to Whitewater Township officials last month. The loss of WRS could hurt cherry prices and force them to ship fruit downstate at a higher cost, they said. "The stakes are huge," said Bern Kroupa, a cherry grower on the Old Mission Peninsula. "This facility is a huge link to the marketplace." "We desperately need these facilities in full operation," added Jim King, a cherry grower in Antrim County's Torch Lake Township. 'About following rules' Others in the local fruit industry disagree. Glenn LaCross, who heads Leelanau Fruit Co. along M-22 near Suttons Bay, said WRS' expansion shifted work that was being done at his plant and forced him to cut jobs. "It really hurt Leelanau Fruit," he said, adding his company and others in the region can handle the cherry crop. LaCross called WRS environmental problems "a travesty" and said those troubles tarnish cherry growers and processors across the region. "It's coming down on all our heads," he said. Neighbors said they aren't trying to shutter the plant but cited a too-narrow focus on jobs and cherries that ignores serious environmental problems. "This is not about cherry farmers, it's not about jobs," nearby resident Nola Boals said. "It's about following the rules." As part of a consent order four years ago to resolve previous violations, the DEQ fined WRS almost $60,000, a figure state officials consider severe. Since then, WRS has been fined for other violations. "Usually, if we had the level of response we had in 2002, you get compliance," said Michael Stifler, head of the DEQ's district water bureau in Cadillac. "That's not been the case." DEQ officials this time turned to the state Attorney General's office to probe additional penalties and possible criminal charges from the November spill and violations found during an inspection last summer. "Yes, we're dealing with the company on all of the issues that are out there," said Rick Rusz, an enforcement specialist with DEQ's water bureau in Lansing. He wouldn't say when the investigation will be completed. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are monitoring the spill cleanup and other site problems because of its proximity to Tobeco Creek and adjoining wetlands. In the meantime, neighbors wonder how much they'll be able to enjoy the outdoors come spring. "I'm hopeful, but I just don't know," Bustance said. "Because we've been down this road a very, very long time." See Related Stories: [an error occurred while processing this directive] |