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Alex Cabrero reportingSome of the prettiest views in Utah are just north of Logan. But for the past few days, there's been a real ugly spot in the middle of all that beauty.
You can't see it from the main road, but if you live in Richmond, you might be able to smell it. Ritewood Eggs has a chicken manure field in town, and an accident a few days ago spilled lots of sewage into the nearby Cub River.
Mike Young: "Boy, this isn't the most pleasant smell."
Mike Young never did like a chicken manure field so close to his home. Now, he really doesn't like it.
Mike Young/ Richmond Resident: "We just saw a bunch of this manure running directly into the river."
It seems the Ritewood Egg company in Richmond had an accident, one that's getting attention from Utah's Departmart of Environmental Quality.
Walt Baker runs the Water quality division. He received a tape from one of Young's friends in Richmond showing all that manure getting into the river.
Walt Baker/ Utah Division of Water Quality: "It's very organically concentrated waste, and it would have a heavy pollutant landing in the Cub River."
Ritewood Eggs has a permit to allow composted waste into the river, but this isn't composted.
Walt Baker: "We have standards that protect that use. This would compromise those standards and impair the waters."
We spoke with Ritewood Egg's manager on the phone, Mark Woodward, and he said because of all the rain and snowpack in the area, it caused the water levels to rise, and basically that's what led to all this chicken manure spilling over and into the Cub River.
Ritewood has two containment ponds for the manure. When levels went up because of all the water, they intentionally breached their primary ponds dam, to let some spill into their secondary pond. But too much got through, and some ended up in the river.
Mike Young: "Who knows what's in this?"
Young still has concerns about the company, though. So does Jeremy Threlfall.
Jeremy Threlfall/ Richmond Resident: "Being so close as a resident, it concerns me."
But Ritewood contacted the state, and dug trenches to prevent any more from getting in.
Walt Baker: "You can shut the gate and prevent further damage from occuring, but what has been done has been done. The river has been impacted."
But how much? Investigators from the DEQ and the Bear River Health Department are taking samples from the river to find out. We should know sometime next week.
