Export ban leads to pileup of dead beasts at rendering facility.

The only local rendering company that disposes of dead dogs and cats has stockpiled 600 tons of animal remains since December, when numerous Asian countries banned imports of U.S. beef byproducts after a mad cow disease scare.

The ban eliminated the only market for Vernon-based West Coast Rendering Co. to sell the animal parts. It plans to either stop accepting animal carcasses in the next few months or else increase fees in order to dispose of the waste in landfills.

"We've been building a mountain in the back of our place," said Bill Gorman, president of the Vernon-based company. He said he has room for another 600 tons of dog and cat byproduct in silos behind the Vernon plant, noting, "It's a real dilemma."

Asian countries such as Vietnam and Taiwan typically purchase rendered animals for use as bait to feed shrimp and fish. But that market dried up on Dec. 23 when a cow in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease.

A host of countries, including Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, immediately suspended imports of U.S. beef products and byproducts--including the remains of dogs and cats, which are categorized as beef byproducts by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The problem hasn't yet had an impact on local animal control agencies, although it could if the trade restrictions aren't lifted in the next several months, when West Coast Rendering runs out of storage space.

Running out of room

The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, one of 14 government agencies that contract with West Coast Rendering, said it was unaware of the stockpiling of cat and dog remains.

Kay Michelson, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the responsibility for stockpiling falls solely on the company.

"We're confident they will honor their contract," she said. "They're doing whatever they need to do to still provide the service to US."

Asked how the county would dispose of the dead animals if West Coast Rendering were to stop accepting bodies, Michelson could give no answer.

After questions from the Business Journal made county officials aware of the problem, Gorman said he received a call from a county official asking him when be was going out of business.

West Coast Rendering, which also uses the name D&D Disposal, collects several hundred thousand dead animals every year--euthanized animals from shelters and pets that have been put to sleep at veterinary hospitals.

Last year, the county paid $80,000 to dispose of 80,000 animals, or $1 an animal.

The city of Los Angeles disposed of 32,000 dead animals from its six shelters last year, outgoing Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Jerry Greenwalt said in February. He was out of the office last week and a spokeswoman for the department did not return a call seeking comment.

West Coast Rendering appears to be one of the few remaining companies that render dogs and cats, said Don Franco, president of the non-profit Center for Biosecurity, Food Safety & Public Health in Lake Worth, Fla.

Because of environmental laws, dog and cat remains cannot be mixed with other beef byproducts. Most states, including some parts of California, incinerate dead animals, according to Franco.

Before the ban, dry rendered tankage, the remains of dead cats and dogs, sold for $100 per ton. Now Gorman can't sell it at all.

His customers in Thailand, China and Vietnam that operate shrimp and salmon hatcheries have had to use higher-priced alternatives such as fish meal since the ban took effect.

To dispose of the byproducts in a landfill would cost Gorman $42 a ton--if they will accept it at all. Many landfills refuse to accept animal byproducts.

Gorman, who avoids the media because of what he describes as the "sensationalistic aspect" of stories written about his business, said he would give the byproduct away as fertilizer if he could. He also would be happy to sell his business.

"It's like, I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't," he said. "If you tried to cremate all of the dead animals that come in in a day, you'd have one of the biggest pollution sites around."

The issue has become increasingly contentious in the past year after a local animal rights group, Animal Defense League, targeted Greenwalt for failing to stop the euthanasia of thousands of adoptable animals. The activist group says it has posted photos of West Coast Rendering's plant and dead animals at the plant on its Web site.

Gorman defends his business as a necessary service that keeps decomposing waste from filling up landfills and contaminating soil and water.

Broad impact

The troubles at West Coast Rendering are only a small part of the impact being felt on the larger U.S. market for animal byproducts. Since the ban on beef took effect, it has hurt the overall rendering industry--companies that take scraps from butcher shops and dead animals from farms and turn them into bone meal, an animal feed, and tallow, an oil used to make paint, rubber and cosmetics.

Currently 58 Asian countries, which have been devastated by outbreaks of the brain-wasting disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, have bans in effect. As a result, prices of rendered products have fallen and markets have dried up.

Tallow prices, which closely track the vegetable oil market, fell from 25 cents a pound to 17.5 cents a pound. Bone meal prices plummeted from $250 a ton to $75 a ton, but have recovered somewhat because bone meal can be used as a replacement for soybean meal in animal feed.

"When you start displacing 20 percent of production in foreign markets, it has an impact on domestic prices," said Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association, a trade group in Alexandria, Va.

Baker Commodities Inc. in Los Angeles is waiting for the export market to reopen. The company picks up meat scraps from supermarkets, butchers and slaughterhouses and churns it into bone meal and tallow.

"We've been talking to the government and trying to sell into the domestic market," said Ray Kelly, executive vice president of Baker, who believes it will take some time for the markets to reopen.

Gorman, who has contacted the state, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, to no avail, hopes the export ban will be lifted before he accumulates 1,200 tons of byproduct and can no longer accept more dead animals.

"We sit and we wait," he said, noting that the byproduct has a shelf life of four to five months. "When you're talking tremendous budget deficits, there really is no money to throw at this."

Asian countries have been decimated by the SARS epidemic in China, an outbreak of Asian bird flu in Japan and South Korea, as well as mad cow disease. Japan, in particular, has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. for not taking steps to ensure the safety of the U.S. beef supply.