Greek yogurt company has brought jobs, and 'nasty' odor, to rural Idaho town

It's getting stinky in the 250-population town of Hollister, Idaho. In December, Chobani opened the world's largest yogurt plant, a $450 million, 1,000-employee facility on 200 acres in Twin Falls. That's 20 miles from Hollister, where the company is dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of acid whey -- a smelly manufacturing byproduct of Greek yogurt -- into irrigation ponds, mixed with water and applied to fields as a soil amendment, Carissa Wolf reports for Boise Weekly. (Weekly photo by Larry Wolf: Chobani plant)

Hollister resident Mike Courtnay, who lives near an irrigation pond, told Wolf, "I don't know if you've smelled whey or not. It is nasty. Really nasty." Mike's wife Deb told Wolf, "I was raised on a farm that had 3,000 pigs and we had whey. And it is not a bad smell at first, but when it gets hot, it ferments and it's a horrible, horrible smell. It's going to ruin the aquifer here. We have a very shallow one here. Our water stands at 30 feet. We don't want to cause problems, but we don't want our livelihoods to change either." (Wolf photo: Mike and Deb Courtnay)

Some Hollister residents are also concerned about the impact on the environment, and the constant vehicle traffic in an area that was once nearly deserted, Wolf writes. "As whey soaked the soil, temperatures climbed and the wind blew across the land, prompting neighbors to grill the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and government officials about noise pollution from heavy traffic, farming rights, disclosure, environmental sustainability and, in general, the smell of the newest operation up the road." It's the same concerns raised by residents near a Cobani plant in upstate New York, in New Berlin.

Hollister residents trying to get their questions answered have had little success, Wolf writes. Residents "called every government agency they could think of, trying to find solutions to what Mike Courtnay puts in the nuisance category. Calls to Chobani representatives went unanswered. Conversations with Idaho DEQ officials were vague. Neighbors say they heard that government agencies were told to look the other way and let Chobani do what it wants." They say they feel no one cares, because it's just a small, remote town that no one ever visits. Resident Carl Jones told Wolf, "If I hauled 2,000 loads of crap and dumped it in Boise, I'd be sitting in a courtroom." (Read more)