West Tenn. officials decry ‘foul stench’ from wastewater ‘fertilizer,’ demand stricter regulation

A pile of solid waste material from food processing plants sits on a site off Sturdivant Road in Brownsville, Tenn. The material was not “applied appropriately” and was “allowed to be transported by water to other locations,” according to a notice of permit violation report issued to Denali Water Solutions on March 22, 2024. (Photo: Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation)

BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. – On stretches of rolling West Tennessee farmland, the stench is putrid and stifling.

Residents of Haywood, Tipton and Lauderdale counties describe a rancid liquid that has muddied town roads, caused a restaurant to close after a spill, attracted hundreds of vultures, sent houseguests packing and led at least one family to consider leaving their home.

“This is the foulest stench you could be around,” said Maurice Gaines, Jr , the mayor of Lauderdale County, located about 60 miles northwest of Memphis. “The only thing that may be just as bad is a dead horse. And if you’ve ever been around livestock, and you’ve had one that’s laid up for a few days, it’ll take your breath.”

Gaines is one of several West Tennessee officials and landowners who gathered in a small Haywood County Courthouse conference room in January to discuss the regulation — or lack thereof — of food processing sludge being spread on farmland as fertilizer.

Arkansas-based waste services firm Denali Water Solutions rejects the “sludge” label. The company says it provides a sustainable solution by diverting “nutrient-rich food processing residuals” from major processing companies away from landfills while helping farmers reduce fertilizing costs.

But Denali is under increasing legal and regulatory pressure as communities in Mississippi Delta states where the company operates raise quality of life and environmental impact concerns to courts and state legislators.

Missouri cracked down on companies that spread food processing residuals on land in 2024, making it harder for companies, including Denali, to offload waste from other states on Missouri soil.

In Tennessee, Haywood County farmer Macon Thornton has lived down the street from a farm where Denali has held permits to spread food processing residuals for a decade, but the quantity of the material spiked after the company recently came under close scrutiny in Missouri and Arkansas, he said.

The farm held about 20 tanks full of the sludge for six or seven years, Thornton said.

“This may be a coincidence — the very week that the state of Missouri stopped them from doing any business in Missouri … they had 12 more of these (storage) tanks come and put on the same farm where we are,” he said.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issues permits to spread the waste on land, and more new Denali permits are under review. Despite staunch opposition from Haywood County leaders, the department approved Denali’s latest permit for farmland close to the Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge in November.

The noxious odor and outstanding questions about how this sludge might impact waterways and wildlife have officials from multiple West Tennessee counties calling for a moratorium on permits and legislative action for stricter regulation.

What’s in the sludge?

The slurry is made up of wastewater residuals from dairy, juice, swine and poultry processing plants and restaurant grease traps. It can contain rinse water, wastewater lagoon sludge, as well as other skimmings and residuals. A third party separates out oils, greases and solids and Denali spreads the remaining wastewater on farmland, according to Denali permit applications.

The residuals Denali uses are essentially material from food processing plants that still contain nutrients, but not enough to be accepted by a waste rendering company for extraction.

TDEC’s permits require Denali to test the material for heavy metals, nutrient levels and other components. The company must report updated analytics every year to ensure the material doesn’t change over time. Denali says it doesn’t contain hazardous waste.

“Since the facilities generating the wastes are food processing facilities, all chemicals and materials used in the processing are required to be ‘food grade,’” the company states in one permit application.

Denali doesn’t test for man-made “forever chemicals” known as PFAS that can be found in things like food packaging, personal care products and water. PFAS often accumulate in people and other organisms and can pose serious health risks. If and when federal and state regulations require PFAS testing, they’ll comply, according to the company.

For Haywood County Mayor David Livingston, self-reported analytics are akin to the “fox guarding the henhouse.”

TDEC confirmed that it does not conduct its own independent lab testing, though the department does perform visual inspections. 

It’s not clear if the impacts of applying the material have been studied on test plots over time. 

“What’s it doing to the water when you get a hard rain?” Jim Nunn, who lives near a now-decommissioned application plot in Haywood County, asked. “Even though they’ve injected it, it washes off and goes into creeks and rivers. What’s that going to do to the water table? What’s that going to do to the birds and amphibians?”

County officials say regulations need real teeth

Denali, formerly Terra Renewal, reported it has around 65 approvals for “beneficial use/land application” in Tennessee, with about 45 of those sites located in West Tennessee. The company stated that about three of these sites are active at any given time.

TDEC is reviewing three new Denali permits for Lake County, and the department is considering amendments to five other permits in West Tennessee. 

The permits specify where, how and when the material can be spread on land, and how it can be transported and stored. To prevent excess sludge from running off of its intended target, the permits require the material to be injected into the soil or applied to the surface and incorporated within six hours. Companies cannot treat fully saturated soil.

Treatments cannot be done from December through April, during wet weather or on frozen or snow-covered ground. Permits also stipulate that the company can’t apply more nutrients than the intended crop can take.

The department can — and has — issued Denali permit violations. One report from March 2024 noted waste material piled on the ground on a rainy day, draining into a nearby ditch at a Brownsville site. 

But officials and residents from Haywood, Tipton and Lauderdale counties say the department does not issue violations often enough, and when it does, the repercussions aren’t strong enough to deter future violations. 

“What Denali has found is a weakness in the regulations in the law … and the state of Tennessee so far has not addressed it at all,” Thornton said. 

In exasperation, he’s taken to documenting violations himself. He has photographs of the material spread on frozen ground in January and snapshots of paved streets so coated in “the stuff” that they resemble dirt roads.

“They can’t do it in the rain. They can’t do it next to the road. They’re doing it in the rain. They’re doing it next to the road,” Gaines said. “And it’s time and time again that they have not been truthful with what they were supposed to do.”

‘They have not acted in good faith’

Lauderdale County sued the company in August 2024, demanding Denali to stop storing and applying waste on a 280-acre plot of land. 

Earlier that year, Denali agreed to stop spreading the waste in Tipton County and remove it after TDEC issued a violation for operating a solid waste processing site without a permit and Tipton County officials threatened to sue the company. Within days of the agreement, more tanks of waste appeared on the Lauderdale County property, the lawsuit states. Chicken waste was dumped in piles on the ground, and other material was injected into the soil on rainy days and too close to public streets and homes.

Denali agreed to stop laying the residuals at the Lauderdale County site.

They did empty the tanks, but left the lids open for weeks after that, Gaines said.

“The smell was every bit as bad, if not worse, then,” he said. “Our problem is they have not acted in good faith.”

Gaines, Thornton and others point to Denali’s history of similar permit violations in Tennessee and other states and say the company’s permits should be canceled. If that’s not possible, they at least want local authorities to be involved before permits are issued – something that is not part of TDEC’s current process.

TDEC stated current regulations don’t allow for the department to issue a “blanket moratorium on Denali’s permitted activities.”

Through a spokesperson, Denali said it understands the community’s concerns and is “actively talking with elected officials” to ensure its operations “remain a viable resource to farmers and the environment.”

Wildlife and water concerns

Mark Ballard, a Lauderdale County commissioner, said he saw an influx of rodents at a pond on a site being treated by Denali.

“All of a sudden … it’s got all of these animals that feed off of detritus and things like that,” Ballard said. “But what we didn’t see — and I’ve seen for 30 years — is a flock of Canadian (geese) that raise their young there. And they’re gone.”

Haywood County officials and residents are concerned about the permit granted for land near the Hatchie River and nature preserve. The land lies in a floodplain amid areas marked as wetlands. 

Haywood County Commissioner Sharon Hayes said it sits in a recharge region for the Memphis Sands Aquifer, which provides drinking water for Memphis and surrounding areas.

“We have pristine water here, and our watershed is so vital,” she said.

Skepticism of soil benefits

Forbes Walker, an environmental soils specialist at the University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension, said he’s not familiar with the content analysis of Denali’s waste streams.

But given the amount of material that needs to be applied, “the nutrient density on this material sounds like it’s very, very low,” he said.

Thornton is skeptical of the promised soil benefits. He said the farm near his home that uses Denali’s services planted a crop last year that “wasn’t near as good a crop as what was on my farm.”

A TDEC inspection note on one Cumberland County site noted the site manager told the inspector he would not allow the waste to be applied on the farm again. “He had to reseed all the fields and did not think the waste had helped grow new grass,” the report states.

Most of the inspections found no violations, but many reports also noted the properties were inspected when they were not actively being treated by the company.

Walker said the odor issues are difficult to measure, but there are ways to cut back on the smell by doing more processing before application and injecting the material into the soil. This will require research and money, he said.

Denali reports that farmers voluntarily participate in the company’s fertilizer program at no cost. When asked if the company pays landowners to allow the material to be distributed on their property, Denali stated it might reimburse farmers for use of their equipment in certain circumstances. 

“We may also reimburse farmers or landowners for projects to support the relationship and allow them to take advantage of our natural fertilizer program,” the company stated.

Rural counties seek legislative changes

The residuals spread on land in Haywood County come from Tyson chicken facilities in Humboldt, Newbern and Union City, among other food processors, according to a Denali permit application.

But Livingston, the Haywood County mayor, said his county doesn’t have a processing plant and doesn’t benefit from their waste. He pitched a new regulation requiring waste to be disposed of in the county where it’s generated.

“At least that way, if you take on jobs in your county, you’ve got to take on the burden that goes along with that,” he said.

Haywood County has lost population in recent years, and is actively trying to attract new residents. 

Hayes, a county commissioner, said this situation is “going to scare people off.”

“We may be rural, but we’re not a dump, and we’re not a place for the rest of the state to decide to spread their refuse,” Livingston said.

In addition, Gaines said Tennessee’s laws allow companies like Denali to provide a “fertilizer” product without being held to the same certification standards as fertilizer companies. 

Sarah Levy, the Haywood County attorney, said any solution needs to be statewide, “and we need new legislation.”

Gaines said no one can understand the scope of the issue until they’ve smelled the sludge.

“If they’ll sell me a load of this stuff, I’ll load it up on a truck — I still have my (commercial driver’s license) — I’ll drive it to Nashville and park outside Legislative Plaza and see how long it takes them to get rid of it then,” Gaines said.

Has past experience ‘poisoned the well?’

Walker said a “beneficial solution” looks like it’s a long way away, but it is possible. 

A colleague with the University of Tennessee has collected samples to test, and the state is working with the university to identify potential areas where the material could be applied farther away from residences.

Tennessee Department of Agriculture Assistant Commissioner Andy Holt is tasked with gathering information and complaints from communities in hopes of brokering a solution.

Denali has been “extremely forthright” with information, Holt said. He believes the company recognizes the resistance to its past mode of operation.

“The charge we’ve been given is to try to find a solution that works as well as possible for all parties involved and that does include everybody — from the ones that are working on the line in these food processing plants all the way down to the farmers that are accepting these nutrients, trying to grow a crop at a reduced cost in comparison to commercial fertilizer,” he said.

But Holt also acknowledged pervading skepticism.

“I think the issue has permeated so long and there’s been so much emotion and there’s so much resistance, that if there really were solutions that were brought forward, would they be accepted?” Holt said. “Or has the well been so poisoned that you just say, we don’t want anything to do with them ever again?”

Gaines, Ballard, Thornton and others said no.

“The real problem we have is, they’ve been proven in state after state after state as not being good actors, so why do we think that we can bring these people to the table and put a few rules down and they’ll follow the rules, because they (don’t) follow the rules anywhere,” Livingston said.