WATKINSVILLE, Ga. — An Oconee County family said a nearby property owner caused a lingering stench in November when he laced an empty field with processed meat sludge. The family said the product --which is legal in the state of Georgia -- kept a man fighting cancer a virtual prisoner in his house.
Deesha Hagwood said the odor hit her like a blast while walking her dog.
It was "an overpowering, unexplainable, noxious odor that just kind of makes your eyes water and kind of takes your breath," she said.
It was mid-November. During that time, her family saw tractors for days on an adjacent property working the field – and leaving a stench unlike any common farm fertilizer.
"I immediately was thinking, 'OK, that’s a terrible smell – but what is it?'" she said.
She notified her son Landon, a longtime cancer patient edging toward remission, and told him to stay inside.
"It was so bad. Like she said, it brings tears to your eyes," said Landon Hagwood.
Oconee County had experienced this before.
Last fall, students got an unwanted taste – as it was spread on a field across from Oconee High School. The state said the source of the stench originates within industrial plants that process live chickens into packaged meat.
"I’m not going to use the word sludge," Deesha Hagwood said, saying she respects the normally earthy odors emanating from surrounding farms.
The product actually has powerful backers, including the state Department of Agriculture, which prefers to call it "soil amendment."
"It is an industry that started with the leftover pieces and parts of dead animals and the fluids" found in processing plants, said Savannah Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitabitus, who talked with 11Alive about it in another case earlier this year.
"That gathers on the floor and has to go somewhere. That somewhere became random farm fields," she said.
She spoke after some of it spilled from a field into a creek in Taliaferro County, launching an environmental investigation.
In Oconee County, property records show the land adjacent to the Hagwoods belongs to a county planning commissioner named Matt Elder. Records indicate he lives several miles away from the treated fields adjacent to the Hagwoods. Elder declined comment.
Whenever a soil amendment is used, state officials said there’s supposed to be a permit available to the public. The Hagwoods said they’ve repeatedly requested records from the state Department of Agriculture. None have surfaced. 11Alive News has also requested the documentation.
"I do want to know what it is," Deesha Hagwood said. Bonitabitus described the soil amendment program as having "a veil of secrecy."
But it’s no secret to the buzzards that have lingered at the Hagwoods’ home throughout November. They used to see deer nightly on the property, but they said the stench has driven them off.