Editor’s Note: The video above shows coverage of previous complaints as of November 13, 2024.
BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — Autumn is in the air in Central Texas. Or, for a growing group of residents living around an animal byproduct manufacturing facility in the Bastrop area, this death is even more brutal.
Complaints about the Darling Ingredients rendering plant in the Camp Swift area are approaching an all-time high this year, according to complaint records released by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. This comes as no surprise to the company, which told KXAN that “we are deeply sorry for the frustration of the local community.”
More than 500 complaints have been filed against the facility in the past 20 years, with more than 300 of them filed in the past two years. The complaints have led to numerous investigations and violations by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality against the company. However, residents say the smells persist.
“It’s a cross between death and feces,” said Joy Kasnowski, an Elgin City Council member since 2022. Kasnowski told KXAN the scents are becoming more frequent — traveling 10 miles north to her city, often with the prevailing southerly winds in the warmer months.
Gather together
Kasnowski helps lead a growing group of residents who have come together to raise awareness of the odor problem. They spoke at a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality meeting and held a town hall meeting. They created a website, “Stop the stench Bastrop.” Which directs people to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s complaint page. It is perhaps no coincidence that the number of complaints against the filing facility is at record levels. Nonprofit advocacy group Public Citizen Also join the effort.
It’s not just immediate neighbors raising the alarm. The complaints emanate from 10 miles north in Elgin and about the same distance south in Tahiti Village — a neighborhood on the south side of Bastrop.
“The emissions they’re looking at, the pollution, the hydrogen sulfide, the other self-harming things, I think they view it as a cost of doing business, unfortunately,” Kasnowski said.
“We hear you,” the company said of the complaints.
Darling Ingredients told KXAN it is working to comply with environmental regulations and is spending millions to address the odor problem.
The Bastrop facility recycles poultry byproducts, including feathers, into fuel and animal food. It’s a process that “gives every ending a new beginning,” according to the company’s website.
“Community concerns are important to us, and we are committed to being good neighbors,” a Darling Ingredients spokesperson told KXAN via email. “We are reaching out to local leaders to discuss these issues and have several projects either underway or already completed to upgrade the facility and improve reliability.”
Darling Ingredients said it recently withdrew a request to change its air permit after its engineering team found a way to manage the process within currently permitted limits.
The company too Published her own web page Dedicated to identifying odors and explaining the company’s multi-level approach to addressing them.
“We hear you,” Darling Ingrements said in a letter to Bastrop County. The Bastrop facility employs about 100 people. On top of processing poultry byproducts, they turn used cooking oil into renewable fuel. It’s big business. Through a joint venture, Darling Ingredients is “one of the largest producers of renewable and sustainable aviation fuels in the world,” according to its website.
The company has more than 260 facilities in 15 countries and… Market capitalization is more than $5 billion.
At the Bastrop facility, Darling Engineers estimates it is investing more than $20 million to improve wastewater treatment, air protection technology, odor control improvements, and improving the reliability of treatment equipment, according to the website.
Even with all that, nearby residents like Kasnowski said they’re not convinced and will continue their campaign to pressure the Texas Commission on Quality and the company until the stench stops.
Order of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Kasnowski said her goal is to get the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to listen to people’s voices, since that agency has regulatory authority on the matter. She helped organize a group to speak at a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality hearing on July 9, when the agency approved Darling Ingrants’ “agreed request” for a $39,000 fine. The group also spoke at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality meeting in October, she added.
A spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said the agency is “actively engaged” with Darling Ingredients to monitor its progress toward compliance with the order.
The order also included corrective actions, including measures to reduce ground-level hydrogen sulfide concentrations, development of an odor control plan, detailed record keeping and proper operation and maintenance of the plant to reduce odors. Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless gas that smells like rotten eggs and is a byproduct of the animal rendering process. High levels can be highly toxic to humans. At low levels, which the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality discovered near the Bastrop facility, the gas can cause eye irritation, headaches and fatigue, according to the commission. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recently issued a notice of violation to Darling Ingrants on September 15 regarding air permit requirements, and the agency has two open investigations related to the ongoing air and wastewater complaints, in addition to the air permit requirements.
Kasnowski and the group of citizens who filed complaints about Darling Ingredients’ odors and reached out to Public Citizen met at a TCEQ commission meeting on July 9. Since then, Public Citizen, a national nonprofit, has been supporting the effort.
‘“Reluctant organizer”
Kathryn Guerra, Public Citizen’s TCEQ campaign director, supported the effort. She worked at TCEQ providing compliance assistance and was in the Environmental Justice Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a region including the state of Texas.
Guerra described the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as a “reluctant regulatory body” that has proven “time and time again that it will side with industry over communities.”
Once a company is subject to enforcement by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — for example, as Darling Ingrants’ Bastrop facility has been since the fall of 2024 — the agency does not take additional enforcement action against them for the same violation, Guerra said.
She added that Darling’s agreed-upon order calls for compliance by January 2026 for the violation that began in July 2024. KXAN sent Guerra’s comments to the TCEQ and requested a response — and the agency confirmed it continues to investigate complaints and issue violations if any violations are found, and said reports on current investigations will be available. On its website Once completed.
“Darling is a multi-billion-dollar company, and they have some of the best public relations staff who are able to reassure (residents) that Darling will move forward and be a good neighbor,” Guerra told KXAN in an interview. “It’s time for Darling to become the good neighbor they tell people they want to be.”
KXAN also spoke to Courtney Kellogg, a Bastrop resident in Tahiti Village. Even there, 10 miles south of the facility, she frequently picks up unpleasant odors.
“We’d smell it maybe once or twice a year, maybe five times, give or take, a year,” said Kellogg, who has lived there since 2017. “Over the last couple of years, it’s gotten more frequent. I mean, to the point where you can’t count.”
Kellogg said it appreciates Darling’s work in recycling, but not if it hurts the community in the process. Maybe a completely different company should come along that can operate its own plant without these odor problems, she said.
“I don’t know that you should have endless opportunities to be such a good neighbor,” Kellogg said. “At what point will your profits continue to go to the expense of the entire community? How can you continue to justify that?”
Despite all that, there is at least one resident who lives near the facility and doesn’t see or smell many problems with Darling’s operation.
Support voice
Amanda, who asked us to use only her first name because she didn’t want to deal with negative reactions from the community, has lived within a mile of the plant for most of the past 43 years.
KXAN caught up with Amanda and spoke with her on the side of the road outside the Darling factory.
When a scent arrives at her house, she says it usually smells like dog food. Sometimes the air has a murkier smell, and sometimes there’s a dirty smell of dishwater. She said none of these bother her much, and people who have recently moved to the area seem to complain the most.
“I think they contain themselves very well,” said Amanda, who noted that she has no personal or business relationships with Darling Ingredients. “They were great neighbors.”
Regarding the multiple violations against the Darling Ingredients, Amanda said she “can’t really speak for them or what the reasoning behind it is, but I know I don’t really worry about it.”
Amanda appears to be in the minority, at least among the people who contacted KXAN about the facility and its smell.
Complaints filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are well documented. “Elgin has become known as the ‘smelly’ town and it’s not the stink of hot dogs. It’s the nasty, disgusting old stuff that makes me sick,” one resident wrote to the agency in July.
The Texas Commission on Quality’s agreed-upon order from July notes that agency workers “detected strong to very strong offensive odors” during visits last year while conducting odor surveys.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has two investigations pending at the Darling Ingredients facility. KXAN will continue to monitor the impact of the agency’s orders, investigations, and facility updates.