Gold Coast may be down but it's not yet out as it fought back against MDEQ's efforts to shut down the company's troublesome wastewater lagoon near Pelahatchie.
MDEQ shut down the company's Rankin County wastewater treatment facility October 1 and ordered Gold Coast to remove all wastewater from the lagoon. The wastewater lagoon produces Hydrogen Sulfide gas and attracts a "plague-level" amount of flies. A multitude of neighbors filed complaints against the company with MDEQ. In July, the lagoon produced a cloud of H2S gas that was so strong it sickened neighbors, knocked out employees, and sent some employees to the hospital.
The Brandon company processes used cooking oil and soapstock into
animal feed and other products such as biodesel. Sulfuric acid is added
to the oil and soapstock. The waste from the process is mixed with a
caustic agent (usually NaOH). The waste must be kept at high
temperatures or else it can't flow. The wastewater has one other
dangerous feature: it is highly acidic with a pH that can be lower than
2. Thus it is very important the wastewater is disposed properly.
This saga began several years ago in Brandon when the city caught Gold
Coast dumping highly acidic wastewater into its sewer system in 2014 and
sued the company. Blocked in Brandon, Gold Coast shipped the wastewater to Rebel High
Velocity Sewer Services in Jackson. Rebel in turn dumped six million
gallons of the Gold Coast acid directly into the Jackson sewer system.
MDEQ issued a cease and desist order against Rebel for the discharges in
October 2017.
The Justice Department is prosecuting the owner of Rebel for the
violations. Gold Coast also discharged wastewater into the Pelahatchie
wastewater treatment facility under an agreement with the town. Running
out of local options, the company built a lagoon in Rankin County for
the disposal of its wastewater in 2019. However, complaints from the
lagoon's neighbors soon began pouring into MDEQ after the facility
opened. The agency investigated and found multiple violations.
MDEQ issued a cease & desist order against the operation of the
lagoon on September 11. The order gave Gold Coast two weeks to submit a
plan to correct the violations.
MDEQ determined Gold Coast had an illegal bypass, applied wastewater
during heavy rainfall or when soil was saturated, didn't operate the
aerators, repeatedly discharged industrial wastewater into the lagoon
when the aerators did not work, and failed to control odors emanating
from the site. Neighbors complained of hordes of flies attracted to the
lagoon.
The agency ordered Gold Coast to immediately stop sending its wastewater
to the Rankin County site until MDEQ gives it permission to do so.
Gold Coast submitted a plan on September 18 and added a fifth aerator.
The company's consultant assured MDEQ everything would soon be fine. The consultant told MDEQ the aerators were working properly and that the odor and flies were substantially reduced. MDEQ inspectors determined almost everything the consultant claimed was false and that the company was merely playing games with the agency. The October 1 order stated:
Since the issuance of Order 7069-20, MDEQ has continued to receive both odor and vector complaints from citizens. In addition, on September 28, MDEQ staff conducted an inspection of the Site. Staff noted that directly downwind of the lagoon "odor was very prominent, nuisance level." Staff also noted that "there was a plague-like level of flies." According to staff, the odor and vectors (flies) continued and "were very noticeable" from the lagoon to Dry Creek which is a distance of approximately 2,190 feet. Staff also drove around the lagoon on public roads and reported nuisance level odors as far as 5,000 feet downwind of the lagoon.
MDEQ said "we gave you a chance to fix things up, now get out." The agency ordered Gold Coast to "remove and dispose of all wastewater at the lagoon" by the end of November. The company must submit a removal and disposal plan by October 11. However, MDEQ did not stop with closing the lagoon. Gold Coast must also obtain MDEQ permission to dispose of wastewater anywhere in Mississippi.
Gold Coast didn't slink away but hired Andy Taggart to represent the company. Mr. Taggart appealed the order for his client on October 8. The company complains the agency acted unfairly as it knew Gold Coast was going to submit a "supplemental response and vector (flies) plan on October 2." Gold Coast shrieked:
Unless relief is granted from its onerous provisions, Order 7074-20, like Order 7069-20, has the effect of putting GCC out of business by completely shutting down its lawful business operations. GCC cannot operate without generating wastewater, and GCC cannot generate wastewater that it will be unable legally to dispose of under the terms of Order 7069-20 and 7074-20.
Due to the effect of Order 7069-20, GCC has not been able to run a significant portion of its manufacturing process that generates wastewater. GCC is still collecting used cooking oil as it is under contract to do for over 1,500 restaurants, but the recycling of that oil would generate wastewater, which GCC is not able to do due to the effect of Order 7069-20. GCC is storing storm water in storage tanks, though the capacity of those tanks is not unlimited. If GCC is not allowed to transport wastewater to its lagoon site, and to maintain wastewater levels at the lagoon
at its design capacity, and to irrigate aerated wastewater from the lagoon as the lagoon is engineered, designed, constructed and permitted to do, GCC will be forced to cease its business operations altogether and effectively forced out of business by regulatory fiat.
The Permit Board added this controversy to the items of discussion at its scheduled meeting on November 10. The Commission on Environmental Quality will hear the Gold Coast appeal on November 19.
Earlier Posts
Acid cloud victims sue Brandon company.
Gold Coast gets a new lawyer.
Company's lagoon produced hydrogen sulfide gas cloud, knocked out workers.
Digging through the weeds.
Brandon sued Gold Coast for dumping highly acidic wastewater into its sewer system.
MDEQ: Rankin Company sickened neighbors, dumped acidic wastewater into Jackson sewer system.
8 comments:
What a scummy bunch of weasels. Can’t believe Andy Taggert is putting his name on the line. This is why regulations exist, to prevent greedy assholes from destroying everything to make a quick buck. Hopefully the owners are criminally liable in this scam.
This whole thing just smells.
Andy is simply an attorney representing his client. If he says, "I recommend against it, you sure you wanta fight this thing? It's going to cost you a ton?" If the answer is "Yes, tee it up", then guess what...Andy, who is just an attorney, does his job to represent his client.
Even Charles Manson and the defendants at Nuremberg had defense attorneys, why should these cooking oil jabronis not have the best legal representation and lobbying that money can buy?
So, he got caught illegally poisoning the environment, so he hires Andrew Walker to do it for him.
1:46 - You're excused. Please give your number-card to the deputy.
Andy is a lawyer simply doing his job.
They caught Andrew Walker down on his luck.
His managed got caught embezzling from him. I mean cleaned him out. He was prosecuted for the embezzlement but there was little recovery as is usually the case. Walker for a while was even living at the office. So they caught a guy who was down on his luck, desperate, and they were willing to pay top dollar on time and every time.
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