THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 17, 1995 TAG: 9507170065
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Thousands of documents that could show whether Smithfield Foods Inc. has been polluting the Pagan River are missing, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Records from the state Department of Environmental Quality show that documentation for about 5,000 lab tests on slaughterhouse wastewater discharged in 1992 and 1993 cannot be found.
Test results show Smithfield Foods has violated state water pollution regulations at least 23 times since May 1994, DEQ records say.
Sources told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the employee in charge of the meatpacker's records is under federal investigation. Spokesmen for the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment.
Smithfield Foods Vice President Carl J. Wood Jr. said the employee responsible for testing the discharges had been reassigned.
State and federal laws require that the company keep test records for three years.
``It's my understanding that the FBI and EPA are undertaking investigations of the Smithfield employee who was in charge of the (wastewater) treatment plants,'' said Amy Clarke, interim director of water enforcement at the Department of Environmental Quality.
That employee, Terry Rettig, formerly managed Smithfield Foods' wastewater treatment plants. He still works on special projects for the $1.5 billion-a-year meatpacking company, Wood said.
Rettig said only that the investigations are ``news to me.''
The problems at Smithfield Foods surfaced in May 1994 while DEQ officials were inspecting the company's two plants in Smithfield.
Together, the plants slaughter more than 16,000 hogs a day.
Blood, hair, feces, water, flecks of meat and bits of bone pass through filters and are treated with microorganisms. The remaining wastewater - 3.7 million gallons a day from the two plants - is released into the Pagan River.
Many people swim, ski, fish and crab in the salty brown water of the Pagan. From the meatpacking plants, the river flows through Smithfield and Isle of Wight County before it flows into the James River. About 18 miles farther on, the James empties into the Chesapeake.
Smithfield Foods tests its wastewater regularly to ensure compliance with its state pollution permit. The company summarizes the results in monthly reports to DEQ. Nearly all the tests are performed by company staff, in-house.
While inspecting the plants in May 1994, state officials asked to look at the company's original testing records for 1992-1994.
Smithfield Foods officials initially said they couldn't find any test records before 1994, state documents show. Later, some records from 1993 were located, but records for about 5,000 tests remain missing.
Wood, Smithfield's vice president, suggested that Rettig was largely responsible for the company's string of violations.
He said it was Rettig's job to monitor the treatment process. He said the monitoring became lax and Rettig was replaced. A company memo to DEQ says Rettig was given a different job in August 1994.
Of Smithfield's 23 violations, four occurred before September 1994. Eight stemmed from problems in September 1994, and nine from problems in the following three months. The company has been cited twice so far in 1995.
Smithfield Foods reported in 1992 and 1993 that the plants were not polluting the river. Officials at the Department of Environmental Quality said it is impossible to independently gauge the accuracy of those reports without the company's test records.
Smithfield Foods has spent $780,000 since last summer to reduce discharges and prevent further violations, Wood said. The company's most frequently cited violation involved high levels of fecal coliform, a bacteria present in manure. On three occasions, the levels were 40 times higher than the company's state pollution permit allows. by CNB