Cattle disposal plan remains for 3 months

Dead cattle will still be disposed of as usual for the next three months, the county's solid waste authority learned Thursday, although there had been some recent snags with where to put them.

County Mayor Eugene Ray told authority members that Appertain Corp. of Pulaski had tried to back out of the agreement they had with the county to dispose of cattle carcasses because they had no place to take the remains.

The company would not dispose of them in Pulaski "because the odor was so bad, they just backed out of it."

Ray explained that the county and Jerry Mansfield of the South Central Development District were going to file an injunction against Appertain for breaking the agreement.

But as that process began, a meeting took place in Murfreesboro with the Rutherford County mayor and individuals running the landfill at Walter Hill, and it was resolved that the cattle would be disposed of there "with the same agreement we got," Ray said.

Ray said that nothing has changed with the arrangement, just the location where the remains would be sent.

For a long term agreement, one of the places that's being looked at for disposal is Clarksville, but nothing is confirmed and the matter will go through Mansfield and the development district, where the county "would have more buying power," Ray said.

Carcasses would still be picked up within 48 hours, but farmers are being asked to put lime on the remains to cut down on the smell.

The county has three more months left in the agreement with Appertain and Ray said the agriculture departments at Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Tennessee were looking at other alternatives.

Griffin Industries, the firm that previously provided carcass pickup under contract to county governments throughout Middle Tennessee, ended the service July 2.

The company explained that new federal regulations made it unable to provide that service any longer. Griffin had been using the carcasses to produce fertilizer, but the new regulations require the removal of the brains and spinal cords of the animals, making the process no longer cost-effective.

Ray said last year that 800 carcasses from Bedford County were disposed of by Griffin -- an average of more than two a day.