June 3, 1970
Page 18059
CHICKEN PLANT LOSES PLEA
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I invite the attention of the Senate to the Supreme Court's rejection of a final appeal by the Bishop Processing Co., of Bishop, Md., which had been ordered shut down because of air pollution. The decision is, I believe, a significant step forward in our fight against environmental pollution and the implementation of the Clean Air Act of 1963.
I ask unanimous consent that an article published in the Washington Post be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
CHICKEN PLANT'S PLEA DENIED BY HIGH COURT
(By John Hanrahan)
The Supreme Court has rejected the final appeal of a chicken rendering plant on Maryland's Eastern Shore that has been ordered closed because it has been wafting obnoxious odors across the nearby Delaware state line for 15 years.
According to the Justice Department, the rejection means that the firm, the Bishop Processing Co. of Bishop, Md., will be forced to close in June.
If it actually is closed, it will be the first plant in the nation forced to shut down under the Clean Air Act of 1963.
A company spokesman said yesterday that he knew little about the Supreme Court rejection, announced Monday, and said he knew of no plans to close the plant. Company attorneys could not be reached for comment.
The plant was ordered closed last October by U.S. District Court Judge Roszel C. Thomsen, of Baltimore, after he heard complaints that unpleasant odors were drifting across the Delaware line near the plant.
Thomsen's ruling also cited repeated violations by the plant of an earlier consent agreement to stop discharging odors.
The company's appeal was rejected in March by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This decision then was appealed to the Supreme Court, which has never ruled on a case involving air pollution laws.
The Bishop firm employs some 40 persons in a $350,000 plant. It cooks animal wastes and then extracts fats to make fertilizers and poultry feed.
Justice Department attorney Robert Lynch said yesterday that the court mandate to close the plant should be issued about June 12. Lynch said the company could reopen the plant if it could show that it had installed equipment to eliminate the odors, described by witnesses at hearings as "worse than dead bodies" and "a smell like nothing else on earth."
The Bishop plant was singled out in the recent report by consumer advocate Ralph Nader's Center for Responsive Law as a prime example of the failure of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the National Pollution Control Administration to get tough with air polluters.
The report said that the company's president, Harold Polin, for 15 years "has managed to outsmart and out-maneuver three governments and two courts."
The report noted that the circuit court first enjoined the company in 1956 from emitting "noxious . . . offensive . . . odors."
The company appealed that order, lost and continued to pollute, the report charges, and eventually was fined $5,000 for contempt of court. Within three months, the report states, "the stench returned."
In 1967, the company was permanently enjoined from discharging "malodorous air pollutants." Within a short time, the report states, the firm "returned to its old tricks."
"Whether or not Harold Polin continues to render chickens, he has already achieved a minor victory for polluters everywhere," the report states. "He has demonstrated how one stout-hearted man can make monkeys out of a confused administration operating under a self-defeating law passed by a gun shy Congress . . . "