Juab County animal rendering plant plagued by fines, family squabbles

MILLS, Juab County — When John Kuhni Sons Inc. moved from Provo to Juab County five years ago, it smelled like a fresh start for Utah's only animal rendering plant. Provo was so eager for the malodorous company to leave its East Bay location, the city kicked in more than $2 million to help finance the move.

But Kuhni's tenure in Juab County has brought financial woes, family squabbles and a string of environmental violations that could shut it down for good.

John Kuhni started the company in Provo in 1937. Every day, it processes over 1,000 tons of animal carcasses and butcher scraps, along with restaurant grease collected from all over the state. That raw material is cooked and crushed into meat and bone meal used in animal feeds, as well as tallow for makeup and other products.

In recent years, Kuhni's grandsons fought in court over ownership of the company. A settlement finally left Kevin Kuhni with day-to-day control, and he oversaw the move to the new site just off I-15, about 15 miles south of Nephi, in 2004.

Problems began almost immediately.

"Kevin's a nice guy, but the management hasn't been there," said Tyler Young, an attorney for Kevin's brothers, Paul and Greg, who took over operations in March.

In January 2005, Juab County sheriff's deputies and officials from the Central Utah Public Health Department found a 10-foot-deep pit next to the plant containing "raw, untreated high-strength slaughterhouse wastes," according to court papers. The next month, they saw waste water running from the plant into nearby Chicken Creek.

The officials notified the state Division of Water Quality, which took samples found to contain fecal bacteria and other contaminants. The division issued the first of six violation notices the company would rack up over the following years.

Melissa Hubbell, an assistant Utah attorney general who has overseen efforts to enforce court-ordered cleanup measures and state fines of nearly $200,000, says the violations were "very egregious."

They include allegations the company illegally dumped boiler water from the plant on private property in Sanpete, Juab and Utah counties. Residents saw trucks releasing the water into a pasture in Palmyra, in southern Utah County, several times in the summer of 2007 and sent a video of the dumping to the attorney general's office.

State investigators later went to the site and stopped a Kuhni truck driver who said he had dumped water there "a couple dozen times," court documents say.

Plant managers blamed the disposal problems on equipment failures, operator error and misunderstandings. Young says at least some of the dumping was done with the knowledge of property owners but concedes the company never had a permit for it.