Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Saturday, October 20, 2007

Third ‘leaky load’ hits the streets: Police ask Wisconsin to crack down on by-product haulers

By Kevin Behr | Winona Daily News

For the third time in five months, another load of chicken “skimmings” splashed down on a Winona street Thursday night.

This time, the driver, Danny Jay Milbradt, stopped his truck and waited for police. He was cited for misdemeanor failure to secure a load.

The viscous brown substance coated the eastbound lane of Fourth Street between Johnson and Main streets at about 9:15 p.m.

According to the police report, Milbradt told officers he could have run a red light or stopped, risking a shift in his load causing it to slosh out of the open-topped trailer. He stopped. The load kept going.

The 23-year-old driver from Belview, Minn., was cited for failure to secure a load, a misdemeanor.

The Minnesota State Patrol later stopped the truck near Lewiston, where it was removed from service because of a “tattered” and “torn” tarp cover that may have been the source of the leak, said Deputy Chief Paul Bostrack.

Bostrack said street crews cleaned up the mess and laid sand down to avoid a slippery road.

According to police, Milbradt was trucking the inedible poultry scraps from a Wisconsin processing plant to Central Bi-Products in Redwood Falls, Minn. The rendering company converts the leftovers into poultry and livestock feed. Their products include “Gro Mor Blood Meal,” “Gro Mor Feather Meal” and “Bleachable Fancy Tallow.”

Thursday’s spill was the third since May 31. On Sept. 6, another truck headed for the same plant spilled its load over 10 blocks of Main Street, forcing a road closure and splattering parked cars. The driver, Gordon Wayne Totman, was cited for failing to secure his load and fined $137.

Police Chief Frank Pomeroy said he contacted Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture in an attempt to get stricter loading laws for chicken refuse and avoid any further spills. He complained there are no rules for hauling trucks leaving the Gold ’n Plump Poultry plant in Arcadia, Wis. and asked the company be put on notice until better procedures were in place.

Investigators have been assigned to check on both ends of the hauling: Gold’n Plump and Central Bi-Products, said Donna Gilson, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. She said the investigation will check whether the truck was registered to haul the byproducts through Wisconsin and whether it met certain standards including being fully enclosed and properly covered.

She said tougher rules could be created but likely the remedy is enforcing existing standards.

Nancy Miller of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said the agency gets reports of manure and other spills throughout southeastern Minnesota, but Winona is the only place to report spills of chicken byproducts. Although the agency did not receive a report of the spill, she said emergency responders have been dispatched to investigate.

Contact Kevin Behr at kbehr@winonadailynews.com or at (507) 453-3524.