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Cavel needs to follow the rules or be shut down.
Editorial
http://www.daily-chronicle.com/articles/2007/02/25/opinions/opinoins01.txt
Cavel needs to follow the rules or be shut down
Barely known to most DeKalb residents only five years ago, the Cavel
International horse-slaughtering plant on Harvestore Drive was thrust
into the local spotlight in 2002 when it burned to the ground under
what
were, at the time, suspicious circumstances.
That Easter Sunday fire was the start of a string of bad luck and bad
publicity for the company, which sells horse meat overseas to people
who
have a taste for that sort of thing.
An anti-horse slaughter contingent, the vast majority of which was from
outside DeKalb, turned up in droves to oppose plans to rebuild the
plant. They flooded city officials with e-mails and this newspaper with
letters to the editor condemning Cavel and the business of horse
slaughter. Some even went so far as to question the character and
humanity of anyone even vaguely supportive of Cavel's continued
existence. DeKalb would be known as the “horse slaughter capital of
the
world,” they screamed.
Reserved for a special brand of vitriol was Jim Tucker, Cavel's
manager,
and the city's representatives in the General Assembly, state Rep. Bob
Pritchard and state Sen. Brad Burzynski, both of whom opposed a bill
proposed by Chicago-area state Rep. Bob Molaro that would have banned
the sale of horse meat for human consumption overseas and put Cavel out
of business.
God was a horse lover, it seemed, and Tucker, Pritchard, Burzynski and
the rest of their ilk were all going to hell, according to the more
strident Cavel opponents.
Today, Cavel and the only other two plants in the country in the same
business, both of which are in Texas, are fighting off an attempt at
the
federal level to shut them down. Last month, a U.S. appellate court
ruled that the Texas slaughterhouses are illegal.
This newspaper editorialized against the Molaro bill in 2004, and we
continue to support the right for companies that humanely slaughter
horses for human consumption to exist.
Some people eat horse meat. Some people eat cows. Some people eat
chocolate-covered bugs and fried grubs. If the powers that be
heretofore
have deemed such practices legal, we don't find any compelling reason
at
this time to reconsider them.
What we do find compelling is Cavel's apparently unmatched record when
it comes to violating the provisions of its wastewater discharge
permit.
In the last 10 years, none of the other heavy industries regulated by
the DeKalb Sanitary District has incurred any fines for violating their
permits, much less $31,500 in fines, as Cavel has.
There also was a scary-looking foam that began creeping over the sides
of a Cavel water tank last week. It presumably contains wastewater from
the horse slaughter process. We don't need to elaborate for readers on
what it contains. Suffice it to say, it ain't root beer.
Tucker says the foamy discharge isn't dangerous and is merely the
result
of a wastewater pretreatment system that needs some more tweaking.
But the system has been in the process of being tweaked for more than
two years now. At some point, you simply have to say: Fix it, or else.
Cavel has until May 31 to get its act together or face being shut down
by a sanitary district board that has been patient - perhaps too
patient
- while the company works on its system.
If May 31 comes and goes and the plant still is not in compliance, we
urge the district to shut it down. The horses certainly won't miss it.
And neither will the homes, businesses and industries who manage to
stay
within their limits on how much untreated waste they can dump down the
sewer.
http://www.daily-chronicle.com/articles/2007/02/25/opinions/opinoins01.txt
Cavel needs to follow the rules or be shut down
Barely known to most DeKalb residents only five years ago, the Cavel
International horse-slaughtering plant on Harvestore Drive was thrust
into the local spotlight in 2002 when it burned to the ground under
what
were, at the time, suspicious circumstances.
That Easter Sunday fire was the start of a string of bad luck and bad
publicity for the company, which sells horse meat overseas to people
who
have a taste for that sort of thing.
An anti-horse slaughter contingent, the vast majority of which was from
outside DeKalb, turned up in droves to oppose plans to rebuild the
plant. They flooded city officials with e-mails and this newspaper with
letters to the editor condemning Cavel and the business of horse
slaughter. Some even went so far as to question the character and
humanity of anyone even vaguely supportive of Cavel's continued
existence. DeKalb would be known as the “horse slaughter capital of
the
world,” they screamed.
Reserved for a special brand of vitriol was Jim Tucker, Cavel's
manager,
and the city's representatives in the General Assembly, state Rep. Bob
Pritchard and state Sen. Brad Burzynski, both of whom opposed a bill
proposed by Chicago-area state Rep. Bob Molaro that would have banned
the sale of horse meat for human consumption overseas and put Cavel out
of business.
God was a horse lover, it seemed, and Tucker, Pritchard, Burzynski and
the rest of their ilk were all going to hell, according to the more
strident Cavel opponents.
Today, Cavel and the only other two plants in the country in the same
business, both of which are in Texas, are fighting off an attempt at
the
federal level to shut them down. Last month, a U.S. appellate court
ruled that the Texas slaughterhouses are illegal.
This newspaper editorialized against the Molaro bill in 2004, and we
continue to support the right for companies that humanely slaughter
horses for human consumption to exist.
Some people eat horse meat. Some people eat cows. Some people eat
chocolate-covered bugs and fried grubs. If the powers that be
heretofore
have deemed such practices legal, we don't find any compelling reason
at
this time to reconsider them.
What we do find compelling is Cavel's apparently unmatched record when
it comes to violating the provisions of its wastewater discharge
permit.
In the last 10 years, none of the other heavy industries regulated by
the DeKalb Sanitary District has incurred any fines for violating their
permits, much less $31,500 in fines, as Cavel has.
There also was a scary-looking foam that began creeping over the sides
of a Cavel water tank last week. It presumably contains wastewater from
the horse slaughter process. We don't need to elaborate for readers on
what it contains. Suffice it to say, it ain't root beer.
Tucker says the foamy discharge isn't dangerous and is merely the
result
of a wastewater pretreatment system that needs some more tweaking.
But the system has been in the process of being tweaked for more than
two years now. At some point, you simply have to say: Fix it, or else.
Cavel has until May 31 to get its act together or face being shut down
by a sanitary district board that has been patient - perhaps too
patient
- while the company works on its system.
If May 31 comes and goes and the plant still is not in compliance, we
urge the district to shut it down. The horses certainly won't miss it.
And neither will the homes, businesses and industries who manage to
stay
within their limits on how much untreated waste they can dump down the
sewer.