Jefferson, Ia. — A prescription for a healthy rural economy has made people in this western Iowa town sick, workers and residents say.

The afflicted blame their ailments on emissions from SoyChlor, a livestock feed supplement plant that opened nine months ago on the north edge of Jefferson, a city of 4,600 people about an hour's drive northwest of Des Moines. They have reported symptoms ranging from persistent coughing and shortness of breath to skin irritations and burning sensations in nasal passages.

Government records show that the plant has violated air-quality standards several times since opening in February. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has not fined SoyChlor for the violations, and it plans to allow SoyChlor to make changes that regulators and the company believe will keep emissions within limits. But residents fear that the changes, including increased production at the plant, will only broaden the problem.

The dispute has pitted at least 150 townspeople against one of Iowa's largest farmer-owned cooperatives and has sparked a lawsuit to force the company to close the plant. The $5 million project received financial assistance and tax incentives from local and state government.

The Jefferson situation is an example of how agribusinesses — from large-scale hog confinements to packing plants — have clashed with their neighbors and rural Iowa communities. The situation also reflects the tradeoffs involved in the cutthroat competition among small towns to attract new business.

SoyChlor uses hazardous materials, including hydrogen chloride, to make a patented product added to feed for dairy cows. Hydrogen chloride is a noxious gas that can be toxic to humans and animals.

When mixed with moisture, it becomes hydrochloric acid, a highly corrosive substance capable of eating through motor vehicle finish, pitting glass, and killing wildlife and vegetation — all of which have occurred, residents say, in the "fallout zone," an area extending a mile or more in every direction from the plant. The gas, the acid and particulate matter tainted by the gas or acid are emitted through a stack that sits atop a concrete tower at the north end of the plant.

Officials with West Central Cooperative in Ralston, owner of SoyChlor, have declined to comment on residents' claims, citing the lawsuit against the company. Nile Ramsbottom, a West Central executive who oversees the plant, did say that the plant complies with Iowa's air quality laws.

But last month, the DNR said SoyChlor had emitted more particulate matter than allowed.

Plant changes proposed

Despite complaints and violations, the SoyChlor plant continues to operate. The DNR has levied no fines or penalties for the violations, said Dave Phelps, supervisor of construction permitting for the DNR in Des Moines. The company is working with the agency to correct the problems, he said.

At the same time, the co-op has applied to extend the emissions stack to 94 feet, as well as to raise its emissions limit. The DNR is prepared to grant the requests, pending the outcome of a public hearing, Phelps said.

Company officials have said they also plan to add a scrubber, Phelps said, which may negate the need for raising the stack or emissions rate as much as previously planned.

SoyChlor also plans to increase production, Ramsbottom said.

That worries residents, who fear that a taller stack will send potentially harmful emissions over a broader area.

Phelps, trained as a chemist, said that's true, but he also said it would dilute their impact on the environment and could help the company stay within permitted emission limits.

Phelps also said, however, that the proposed changes were no guarantee that there would be no more problems.

"We're trying to work with everybody to get it squared away, and we think it will," he said. "It's a balancing act."

Residents file suit

On Oct. 28, about 150 Jefferson residents, workers and business owners filed a lawsuit against West Central in Greene County District Court. Plaintiffs include workers at several other businesses in the area, including MicroSoy, American Concrete, Electrolux and Sparky's One Stop, a convenience store.

The plaintiffs contend the co-op failed to give adequate notice to the public about the potential hazards of materials used at the SoyChlor plant before it opened on Feb. 14.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit contend that they are not anti-agricultural activists reacting to a typical nuisance, such as livestock odor or grain dust.

"In Iowa, when you live in a community this size, you accept it because it's agriculture," said Jeff Ostendorf, a Jefferson livestock producer who works at MicroSoy Corp., a soy-based food ingredient manufacturer located across the street from SoyChlor. "This is different."

West Central had planned a public meeting for Monday (Nov. 7) at a Jefferson church to address concerns about the SoyChlor plant. But last week, the co-op canceled the meeting, citing the pending lawsuit against it.

Tuesday (Nov. 8) is the City Council election. West Central's Ramsbottom is running, and he hopes to unseat Bill Figenshaw, an incumbent.

Several Figenshaw signs, but few for Ramsbottom, dot residential areas at the north end of town, in the shadow of SoyChlor and West Central's massive grain-handling complex.

Health problems increase

Bonnie Burkhardt lives south of SoyChlor, across the street. One day last week, she paged through notebooks and three-ring binders in which she has kept meticulous track of communication about the dispute with public officials, company officials and others in the community.

One notebook detailed the potentially harmful effects of the toxic substances used by SoyChlor, along with reports from medical doctors treating Burkhardt and others who say they have suffered health setbacks this year.

Formerly vibrant children now sleep way too much and run low on energy quickly, families say. Colton Conroy, a 15-year-old pushing past 6 feet tall, got winded easily and began to lose weight, his mother said. Adults with respiratory ailments, including Norma Gross and Ron Lawton, said they had been improving with the help of medical treatments, but now say they have gotten worse.

Last year, Gross was doing well, despite her chronic lung disease. But after SoyChlor opened, she lost ground quickly, struggling to breathe. Her physicians at University Hospitals in Iowa City, where she has been participating in a research project, urged her to move away, she said. But she is a lifelong resident, and she and her husband raised 10 children here. Gross doesn't want to live anywhere else.

Also alarming to Gross and Burkhardt is the loss of wildlife. Gone are the pigeons that used to sit atop tall grain storage structures north of the SoyChlor plant, they said. Gone are the bluejays, cardinals, goldfinches and other birds that used to perch on the numerous feeders in Gross' backyard. She has not seen a bird for weeks.

"It was like all of a sudden there weren't any birds anymore, not even sparrows," said Gross, who lives in a tidy trailer park within a mile of the plant.

In addition, spots have surfaced on the finish of vehicles and on the siding of homes and other buildings, even on mailboxes.

Jefferson residents said West Central's insurer had hired a Florida firm to clean vehicles affected by the emissions. They also said the insurer had offered checks of up to several hundred dollars to residents claiming property damage, although recipients were required to sign a form releasing the co-op and its affiliates from further claims.

West Central officials did not return phone calls late last week.

Similar symptoms seen

Burkhardt said she first noticed that something was wrong when her skin would burn while she worked in the flower garden. Eventually, it drove her indoors, where she would shower to make the burning stop. That was last spring, after she spent several months in Florida with her husband, Chuck.

At the same time, Arletta Tasler and her husband returned from a winter in Texas. They both developed coughs that have lasted for months, they said. At times, Tasler said, she has coughed so hard that she has vomited.

Like Burkhardt, the Taslers had no clue about the cause.

Burkhardt and her friend Diane Conroy talked to neighbors and people working at nearby businesses. Within a mile of Burkhardt's home, they found dozens of people reporting similar symptoms. They had noticed a strange odor first, like the scent from a bag of empty beer cans left in the hot sun for a day, Conroy said.

Then came health problems. Then the spots on vehicles and on buildings. Then filminess on windows and windshields that scrubbing could not remove. And some noticed that their eyeglasses had become pitted.

The women searched the Internet for information about SoyChlor and the chemicals it used.

The more they learned, the more they became convinced that the culprit was SoyChlor.

"If you get this on your siding, if it's pitted, think what it's doing to your lungs," said Tasler, who lives with her husband of 49 years, Shorty, on a farmstead directly east of the plant where they raised eight children.

Burkhardt, Conroy and others contacted the head of city sanitation, the public health nurse and the local newspaper editor. They began contacting the government — environmental and safety regulators, Iowa's U.S. senators, even the White House.

Conroy and her husband, Jeb Ball, contacted their lawyer in Des Moines. He referred them to George LaMarca, another Des Moines lawyer. LaMarca knew just how deadly hydrogen chloride could be. The gas had incapacitated some of the victims in Des Moines' deadliest fire ever, which swept the Younkers store at Merle Hay Mall on Nov. 5, 1978. LaMarca represented victims' survivors in litigation that lasted for years and, ultimately, resulted in an undisclosed settlement for the plaintiffs.

He has just five words for the co-op: "We want the plant closed."

Posted by Spencer Fraise, owner of http://www.iowahealthinsurance.biz after experiencing the issue first hand while staying with his girlfriend's mother. The SoyChlor plant can be seen from the kitchen window of her house which is only a couple of blocks away.