BREAKING NEWS: Reports – RES may close

Butterball stops supplying remains to Carthage plant

Butterball has stopped sending turkey guts, feathers and remains from its Carthage plant to the Renewable Environmental Solutions LLC plant in the Carthage Industrial Bottoms.

Changing World Technologies LLC, the owners of the Carthage RES plant did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on rumors about the possible closure of RES, but Butterball is the main supplier of feedstock for RES’ plant. RES manufactures a combustible fuel oil from agricultural waste, including animal remains, according to the company’s literature.

Kipp Bodnar, a spokesman for Butterball’s corporate office in North Carolina, said officials at the Carthage turkey processor told him they were no longer shipping turkey remains to the RES plant as of Monday.

In another announcement, Jasen Jones, director of the Joplin Workforce Investment Board office, said today that based on information he received from an RES employee, there will be a Rapid Response meeting at 10 a.m. Friday at the Fairview Christian Church. The meeting is for all RES employees.

“We don’t have any official information from the company, just that there is some type of reduction taking place and that came from an employee who called us,” said Jones. “There is some type of reduction going on, but we don’t know if it is a closing or just a reduction of workforce.

The Press has tried to contact management at the local plant and at the corporate offices at Changing World Technologies, Inc. in West Hempstead, N.Y. The operator at the corporate offices said no one was in the office at 10 a.m. EST today and no one was available to comment on the situation.

Carthage City Manager Tom Short said this morning that he heard the same rumor Monday night but has not received official confirmation from RES.

“We have tried to call (local and corporate officials) but have not been able to talk directly with anyone,” said Short.

Controversy has dogged a plant that was a prototype for using agricultural waste to create a fuel oil that was usable in commercial furnaces and boilers.

Residents of Carthage and the surrounding rural area have complained almost since the plant opened in 2004 about terrible odors coming from the plant.

Tricia Orr, a resident who lives just north of the Carthage plant, has worked since shortly after the plant opened to try to get the company to control the odors.

Orr is party to a lawsuit filed by Carthage resident Cynthia Sundy against RES claiming the company was harming the city.

Orr said she hadn’t heard any of the rumors pertaining to RES when contacted by The Press on Tuesday.

“I’m speechless,” she said when told that turkey remains were no longer being shipped to the plant. “I can’t comment on anything because the lawyers won’t let me, but this is a total surprise.”

The company was shut down by the state for a month after it was cited for emitting odors. Since 2006, RES has said it installed new technologies and thermal oxidizing systems that eliminated odors from the plant.

It has denied that it is the source of any odors coming from the Carthage Bottoms area since 2006.

The Carthage City Council passed an ordinance this year setting more strict limits on odors in the city, despite a request from an attorney representing RES to speak to the city.

Rep. Tom Flanigan has filed a bill in the state legislature strengthening state odor laws as well.

Changing World Technologies announced last year that it would try to sell stock in the company in an initial public offering to try to raise money to build more plants and expand on the thermal conversion process it uses to convert agricultural waste to oil.

The company confirmed in February that it had decided not to sell stock and was withdrawing from its initial public offering, but a company spokeswoman said federal Securities and Exchange Commission rules imposed a “quiet period” on the company during the time around a proposed public offering and she couldn’t say why they were withdrawing the stock offering.