Texas Pet Foods, Inc. v. State

578 S.W.2d 814, 1979 Tex. App. LEXIS 3204
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 8, 1979
Docket5859
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 578 S.W.2d 814 (Texas Pet Foods, Inc. v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Texas Pet Foods, Inc. v. State, 578 S.W.2d 814, 1979 Tex. App. LEXIS 3204 (Tex. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

HALL, Justice.

Defendant-appellant Texas Pet Foods, Inc., operates a poultry rendering plant which by a process of cooking converts chicken and turkey offal, including feathers, into a protein supplement for animal feeds. The plant is located in McLennan County near the City of Waco, and is adjacent to the Brazos River.

Appellee State of Texas brought this suit to permanently enjoin defendant from allegedly violating and threatening to violate certain provisions of the Texas Clean Air Act (Article 4477-5, Vernon’s Tex.Civ.St.), the Texas Renderers’ Licensing Act (Article 4477-6, Vernon’s Tex.Civ.St.), the Texas Water Quality Act (V.T.C.A., Water Code § 21.001 et seq.), and permits issued to defendant under those Acts; and for the assessment of monetary penalties provided in those Acts for asserted past violations by defendant.

There are six cookers in the plant. Feathers and lungs are rendered together separately from the other offal. After cooking, the feather-lung mixture is conveyed mechanically through a dryer, then a grinder, then in the form of meal into a storage bin. The other material'follows the same route after leaving the cookers, except that its first stop is an expeller where oil is pressed from it and run into a tank, and it does not pass through the dryer. Under optimum plant conditions odors from the raw materials, the cookers, the expeller, the dryer, the finished meal, and the water used in the processing are controlled and eliminated through a “scrubber system” in the plant and a “ridge-and-furrow system” in fields outside the plant for water disposal. Interworking with these systems and necessary to their proper functions, are fans, steam condensers, water-chlorination equipment for oxidizing particulate, filters, grease traps, recycle pumps, and a “hot well” aeration tank. Maintained and operated at maximum efficiency, the auxiliary equipment prepares vapors and the air in the plant for odor elimination in the scrubber system, creates a “negative air pressure” in the plant which pulls the air and vapors through the scrubber system for elimination of odors, and also cleanses the water of all particulate and heavy odors before it is released to the ridge-and-furrow system for disposal. If the auxiliary equipment fails to work or is permitted to operate inefficiently, the scrubber system and the ridge-and-furrow system cannot properly perform their odor-elimination functions.

The ridge-and-furrow system is a “no-discharge system” consisting of three five-acre tracts upon which the water is released under required measured-flow in “three-day, three-field rotations.” A reed grass cover-crop is cultivated on the ridges for transpirative disposal of the water and aerobic elimination of any odors remaining in it. Water is also eliminated from the ridge- and-furrow fields by surface evaporation and by percolation through the underlying soil. The system was not designed for disposal of organic material, and any such solids reaching the furrows will putrefy and cause odors.

Air in the plant is released to the outside through the scrubber system which is “the heart of the air pollution control equipment.” The scrubber system consists of two parts. The first is a venturi-type scrubber which is designed to remove heavy odors, oil droplets, fine meal droplets, and other particulate from the air inside the plant. The second scrubber, the primary *817 one, is a pack scrubber with packing material which will not function properly if contaminated with particulate matter. It is designed to handle only plant air from a low-odor source. It cannot handle the high-intensity odors coming from the cookers, expellers, dryers, and other plant areas; but an efficiently operated venturi scrubber will precondition the plant air and heavy odors for elimination by the pack scrubber.

Trucks delivering offal to the plant enter through an “air curtain” which is a series of fans designed to help maintain the negative pressure in the plant and thereby prevent the escape of odors at the truck entrance. If the plant is not kept sufficiently airtight the air curtain cannot function properly, the negative pressure in the plant is affected adversely, and the scrubber system is rendered less effective.

The case was tried to a jury, beginning on August 2, 1976. Thirteen violations alleged by State against defendant were submitted to the jury for their determination. In their verdict, returned to the court on August 16, 1976, the jury made the following answers to the special issues:

(1) Failed to find that defendant “caused, suffered, allowed, or permitted the emission of odors from its rendering plant property in such concentration and of such duration as to adversely affect or tend to adversely affect human health or welfare or to interfere with the normal use and enjoyment of property on any day from May 1, 1973, to August 2, 1976.”
(2), (3) These issues called upon the jury to find the number of days that odorous emissions occurred and to set defendant’s penalty for each daily violation within the statutory limits at not less than $50.00 nor more than $1,000.00; but because issue number one was answered “no,” the jury did not reach these issues.
(4), (5), (6) Found that on nine separate days between September 5, 1975, and August 2, 1976, defendant “failed to have installed proper hooding and duct work to pull all emissions from either its hotwell, its feather meal holding tanks, its conveying system from the holding tanks to the driers, or its feather meal driers, through the venturi scrubber; and set defendant’s penalty at $50.00 for each day of the violation.
(7), (8), (9) Found that on thirteen separate days between September 5, 1975, and August 2, 1976, defendant “failed to control openings to its rendering plant building so as to maintain a negative pressure within the building”; and set defendant’s penalty at $50.00 for each day of the violation.
(10), (11), (12) Found that on thirteen separate days between September 5, 1975, and August 2, 1976, defendant “failed to maintain its air pollution abatement equipment in a fully operable and functioning condition”; and set defendant’s penalty at $50.00 for each day of the violation.
(13), (14), (15) Found that on forty separate days between May 1, 1973, and August 2, 1976, defendant “discharged solids to its ridge-and-furrow field system”; and set defendant’s penalty at $50.00 for each day of the violation.
(16) Failed to find that defendant “allowed water to stand in its ridge-and-furrow field system for more than twenty-four hours on any day” between May 1,1973, and August 2,1976.
(17), (18) These were subsidiary time and penalty issues conditioned upon an affirmative answer to issue number (16), and accordingly were not answered.
(19), (20), (21) Found that on twenty-four separate days between May 1, 1973, and August 2, 1976, defendant “failed to maintain a good cover crop on its ridge-and-furrow field system”; and set defendant’s penalty at $50.00 for each day of the violation.
(22) Failed to find that defendant “failed to provide an accurate flow-measuring device for water transmitted to the ridge-and-furrow field system” on any day between May 25, 1973, and August 2, 1976.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Malone Service Co.
853 S.W.2d 82 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1993)
State v. Texas Pet Foods, Inc.
591 S.W.2d 800 (Texas Supreme Court, 1979)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
578 S.W.2d 814, 1979 Tex. App. LEXIS 3204, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-pet-foods-inc-v-state-texapp-1979.