By Rene Romo / Journal South Reporter as it appears in the Albuquerque Journal
The slaughterhouse hauled away about 400 tons of composted cattle remains…
LAS CRUCES — The Roswell-area meat processing plant that sparked controversy with its bid to begin slaughtering horses for foreign consumption has been slapped with an $86,400 state fine for its handling of composted cattle remains.
The state Environment Department issued Valley Meat Co. a compliance order, dated Aug. 2, for the alleged failure to register a composting facility at a site next to the slaughterhouse and for failing to properly dispose of solid waste, according to Jim Winchester, the Environment Department’s spokesman.
Valley Meat attorney A. Blair Dunn said the company will contest the violations and request a hearing with state officials. Valley Meat received the compliance order on Tuesday — Aug. 14 — by electronic mail, Dunn said.
An employee of the Valley Meat slaughterhouse, owned by Rick De Los Santos, is a certified compost facility operator but, Dunn said, the company’s efforts to register the offal composting facility have been stalled because the state lost at least two prior applications. When the company filed a third one, it was denied because it was not filed on a timely basis, Dunn said.
The slaughterhouse hauled away about 400 tons of composted cattle remains as of May after two years of prodding by the Environment Department. The company would have hauled away more but, Dunn said, the state prohibited a Roswell landfill from accepting more waste.
Concerns about decomposing cattle remains on a site next to the Valley Meat slaughterhouse were initially raised in January 2010 by an official with the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. The official wrote state environment officials to report that one pile of cow renderings stood about 15 feet tall and that, while the material was described as being composted, “rotting would be more accurate.”
In May, a Colorado-based horse advocacy group, Front Range Equine Rescue, urged the Environment Department to fine the company for violating waste disposal laws.
Several thousand cubic yards of previously composted material remain on the Valley Meat site, according to an e-mail from Winchester.
Valley Meat has not given up its effort to begin slaughtering horses for foreign meat markets.
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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
With all those rotting caracess’s I can’t imagine all the flies and other bugs that are around! I could see dogs eating off that pile of dead cows,too! That is such a health risk on top of this! I still don’t understand why the plant ended up with this pile of dead animals! It is disgusting to think about and I am glad they were fined! Even through all the this they want to still open a horse slaughter plant? That is insane,stupid and disgusting! I am totaly against horse slaughter and I would love to see this plant totally shut down and the owners never allowed to open another one,especailly for horse slaughter!!!!!!
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Slapping them with a fine, should be the least which is done!!! Low-life, cold hearted “people,” would allow this situation to exist!!
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These people have more excuses!!!
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slaughtering is in their blood…
just keep on shutting them down! fines and exposure and more!!!
one day, their asses will be bad history. demons and pollution are their make up.
they will not survive these tortures and killings………………
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yesterday the New York Times had a ‘drought and horses article. That ‘unwanted horse group promoted the Indian reservations as having 170,000 unwanted horses. They are doing their dirty business again..publishing a number of ‘unwanted horses’. In future they will use that number as a fact for some contract.
I’m sure their next move will be to open a slaughter facility on reservation land and that will be untouchable by federal or state regulations of any type. They probably can set-up some deal that frozen meat shipped overseas will be inspected in the foreign country. They do that now with the asian carp that infest american waters, fish into shipping containers, freeze and ship overseas to process.
It’s just so sad for horses that they can’t get listed as a companion animal and gain similar protections as dogs and cats. So sad wild horses can’t get listed as the Native Species they ARE.
Can anyone with the GPS locations of BLM facilities, those pro slaughter peoples ranches, locations of round-up pens, try this service to see if live satellite images can be found of their facilities and published?
http://www.terraserver.com/
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Sue Wallis on FB,
At least the ones that got gathered and took a short ride to an instantaneous death in a processing plant where they were turned into good meat that somebody wants were spared the awful, and horrific months of painful starvation and thirst before they died. That sorry fate is a direct result of the bleeding heart animal rights radicals. Let’s put the blame where it belongs!
Horses Fall Victim to Hard Times and Dry Times on the Range http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/us/horses-fall-victim-to-hard-times-and-dry-times-on-the-range.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&smid=fb-share
Thousands of the nation’s horses are being left to fend for themselves on the dried ranges of the West and Southwest, abandoned by people who can no longer afford to feed them.
Share · 20 hours ago
Sometimes I wonder what kind of drugs she’s on.
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This not only disgusts me , but also sickens me, I always thought the Indians loved their Horses and respected them !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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