The JBS pork plant in Louisville, Ky. has submitted plans for controlling livestock odors at its Butchertown plant to the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District. The company had been ordered to submit a plan following a recent notice of violation and fine of $98,750.
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that JBS had earlier submitted a report titled "Assessment of Stock Pen Odors at the Swift Pork Company Plant in Louisville, Kentucky," dated Jan. 31, that it commissioned from Odor Science & Engineering in Bloomfield, Conn. The plant will follow recommendations made in the assessment report, Dennis Conniff, an attorney with Frost Brown Todd who represents JBS, said in a March 13 letter to the agency.
The letter says Swift already has made repairs to equipment that treats wastewater from the stock pens to prevent overflows that caused additional odor and is in the process of upgrading the water sprays within the stock pens, as recommended by the assessment report. The company is expected to have replaced those nozzles by June 1.
The company had previously been granted approval to expand the facility, adding a fourth unloading chute and completing the enclosure of the hog pen area. A recommendation in the report says fully enclosing the area "will reduce the total flow rate of fugitive odor."
