The owner of a poultry rendering plant on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is making progress toward resolving the facility’s longstanding wastewater woes. But spills and odor complaints continue to plague the operation.
The Chesapeake Bay Journal combed through hundreds of pages of state inspection reports, court documents and recent environmental studies conducted at the Linkwood facility to look at whether Darling Ingredients is making good on promises to clean up the plant.
The facility processes leftovers from Delmarva’s chicken meat industry, such as entrails and feathers, into pet food. It has been operating under a state consent decree since 2022 stemming from years of wastewater violations dating back to when it was owned by Valley Proteins, another rendering company.
The Bay Journal’s examination of reports and records revealed that Darling has completed upgrades to its wastewater treatment plant aimed at reducing nutrient pollution to a waterway that flows into the Transquaking River in Dorchester County. Testing of new systems is expected to conclude Feb. 1, said Darling spokeswoman Jillian Fleming. The company also completed a series of odor-abatement measures in November 2023.
But problems persist. Over the past year, a significant wastewater spill occurred while a state environmental official was on site. Also, treated wastewater levels in one or both of the site’s lagoons rose above the permitted level and stayed there for two months. Neighbors continue to complain about foul odors coming from the plant.
“It’s a weird thing to describe,” said Franco Primavesi, who lives a little over two miles away from the plant and has filed multiple odor complaints with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). “It’s not a trash smell. It’s just burned protein.”
Fleming said Darling installed the odor-suppressing equipment as required by the consent decree.
The plant’s struggles to comply with state pollution standards show it is “nowhere near” being able to comply with its permit, said Matt Pluta, the director of riverkeeper programs for ShoreRivers, a local environmental group.
“It’s excuse after excuse,” he added.
ShoreRivers and other environmental groups successfully sued to overturn a permit that MDE had issued in 2023, which would have allowed the plant to increase its wastewater by nearly fourfold. Revisions to that permit are on hold while the state conducts studies to determine the nutrient and sediment limits for the Transquaking tributary.
The new permit should be finalized by early 2028, said MDE spokeswoman Aimena Lipscomb.
The site has a long history of troubles with keeping pollution in check.
The facility began operating in 1957. As early as 1987, state testing found its discharges to be “acutely toxic” to aquatic life, according to MDE documents.
The problems reached a crescendo in 2021 after drone images captured by ShoreRivers showed a discolored discharge emanating from the plant’s outfall into the Transquaking tributary.
That was followed by lawsuits filed by MDE as well as three environmental groups: ShoreRivers, Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Darling signed a consent decree in 2022 in which it agreed to pay a $540,000 penalty while fixing wastewater treatment violations, curbing polluted runoff and investigating whether groundwater beneath the site was being contaminated.
Darling, though, was ordered to pay another $15,000 in 2024 after MDE said the company violated the decree by overfilling the two wastewater lagoons next to the plant on multiple occasions. That fine remains on hold, pending a court challenge by Darling.
The Texas-based company points to an exception in the decree allowing high wastewater levels in the wake of what the document calls “significant storm events.” Attorneys for the company argue that the decree’s inexact language was intended to give plant operators flexibility over managing the lagoons’ wastewater levels.
Attorneys for the environmental groups reject that contention. They say that, if that were the case, just about any type of rainfall could be used as justification for violating the wastewater level limit. For its part, MDE contends that Darling should have to comply with the decree for storms that deliver up to 5.3 inches of rain over 24 hours, the equivalent of a 1-in-10-year rainfall.
Inspection records for 2025 show that every day from Jan. 1 through Feb. 27 one or both lagoons failed to maintain the mandatory 24-inch space between the water level and the top of the pit. And Darling officials didn’t report those instances to the state as required. (No further water level exceedances were recorded through Oct. 31, the last date included in the report.)
Dorchester County Circuit Court Judge William H. Jones said after a Nov. 12 hearing that he would decide on the wastewater level dispute within two weeks. No updates to the case had been posted to Maryland’s online court record database by press time.
State inspection reports in 2025 continued to cast a concerning light on the facility. For example, during a July site visit, an MDE inspector witnessed a spill first-hand as a wastewater treatment tank began overflowing from the top. Darling staff and contractors scrambled to siphon up the spill before it could reach the nearby waterway that leads to the Transquaking, but their efforts were not entirely successful.
According to the inspector’s report, “a significant turbid flow” was visible in the water. Darling officials later calculated that 750 gallons of polluted water had poured into the Transquaking watershed. The inspector disagreed, estimating that the amount exceeded 3,000 gallons.
Meanwhile, Darling hired consultants, TRC Environmental Corp. of Greenville, SC, to perform the required groundwater study, which showed that certain pollutants, including nitrate and nitrogen, were above background levels near the lagoons. But TRC’s report concluded that “these concentrations are not believed to be excessive.”
The consultant suggested that those contaminants could be attributable to “historical releases.” In a letter last August, Arno Laud, an MDE compliance manager, told Darling that such legacy pollution doesn’t sufficiently explain the contamination levels detected there. Laud ordered a full inspection of the lagoons’ linings to determine whether they’re leaking.
That analysis is on hold until wastewater plant upgrades are fully in service, officials say.