Chapter 6/War on stench

Dear Glen Loyd:

It's a good thing "We the People" have someone like you.

Eloise Jones

Despite the placid little city seen by national TV audiences when the Packers play on Monday Night Football, Green Bay smelled terrible back in the 1970s:

• The paper mills had a bad industrial odor.
• There were several dead animal-rendering plants.
• The Green Bay metropolitan sewage treatment plant often produced a gut-wrenching stink.
• There was even a pig farmer in town.

People called and wrote me letters saying it smelled so bad they couldn't cook out in the summer, and their children had to play inside. A newspaper writer said, "any normally functioning nose can detect that portions of this city are at times laden with unbearable odors."

Declaring "War on Stench," I asked five other Green Bay citizens to join me in an environmental lawsuit against eight sources: Charmin Paper; American Can; Armour and Company; Green Bay Packaging; Green Bay Soap; Packerland Packing; the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewage District and the pig farmer. (I was one of the first citizens to take advantage of a new state law, which allowed environ- mental lawsuits under the jurisdiction of a hearing examiner from the State Department of Natural Resources.)

Fifteen lawyers took part in the three-day hearing. The Milwaukee Journal was there and news of the unusual lawsuit was reported around the country.

In addition to my TV-11 news crew, the two other Green Bay TV stations covered the hearing. Five of the eight firms wanted the TV cameras out of the courtroom so I had to immediately fight for freedom of the press.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Parins granted a temporary stay, but then ruled against the attempt to restrict news coverage, saying that the right of the public to be informed overrode arguments that unrestricted coverage could possibly result in prejudice, harm or denial of due process to the defendants.

Tom Brooker of the Brown County Chronicle (now the Green Bay News Chronicle) wrote, "neither the Scopes-Monkey trial nor the Sacco-Vansetti case has anything on the hearing held by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Periodically at stake was the credibility of seven of the largest industrial complexes in the area as well as freedom of the press, the authority of the DNR, and the rights of the common man to control his environment."

Although I had talked my TV station into letting me file the lawsuit, I was in big trouble. These giant companies hired first class law firms with skilled attorneys to defend them. I had no budget for hiring even one attorney. In fact, I had my assistant subpoena the companies to testify at the hearing. Fortunately, New York environronmental attorney Victor J. Yannacone, Jr. liked to sail in Door County, Wisconsin, which is close to Green Bay. He said if I paid his airfare to Green Bay, he would represent me for free and then go sailing with local friends.

Yannacone had been to Green Bay on the first Earth Day in 1970 as the featured speaker at a new university which focused on ecology. The Associated Press identified the University of Wisconsin Green Bay as a new and radical academic experiment that would concentrate on environmental problems. The chancellor said faculty members would share their expertise in community projects to make the planet safe and fit humans. But when Yannacone came back for the stench hearings, the University was afraid of offending local industry. I could only get one professor to testify and he backed out at the last minute.

Writing about Yannacone, Brooker of the Brown County Chronicle said a New York David had come to slay the Goliaths of Green Bay industry on behalf of area citizens with a distaste for stench: "Tenacious and surly, at times obnoxious and at times placating, Yannacone lived up to his reputation during the exhaustive three-day affair and was the dominant force throughout. For Yannacone is simply regarded as the best environmental lawyer in the entire nation, as well as the most unorthodox. Never failing to feed his consummate ego, he claims to have been thrown out of the Supreme Court more times in a single month than most barristers have in a lifetime. One-time head man of a militant conservation group called the Environmental Defense Fund, Yannacone's motto is, "sue the bastards."

"But for all his unpleasant qualities, the Long Island attorney gets results. It was Victor J. Yannacone who fought DDT [the pesticide that was killing birds and other wildlife] in the courts and had it abolished."

At the end of the three-day stench hearing, six of the companies promised to install odor equipment or showed their plants were already equipped to control odor. And the pig farmer agreed to move out of town. I was accused of starting the "War on Stench" as part of a promotion scheme to garner higher TV ratings.

But Yannacone argued, "For the first time the largest industries have been forced to give information that was never available before. Under oath they have stipulated what their programs are and what they would accomplish. Now, if they fail to live up to their testimony, the Department of Natural Resources can use this record and testimony to find them in contempt and prosecute them under the power of the attorney general's office."

Tom Brooker wrote, "In representing the Metropolitan Sewerage District, Meyer Cohen was the most vociferous attacker of WLUK-TV's motives. He lashed out at unethical journalism, selfish promotions, and embarrassing harassment. In response, Yannacone jumped up, thrust a finger toward Cohen's picturesque face, and shouted, "Mr. Examiner! My client [Glen Loyd] is being slandered!"

"Don't you raise your voice at me, you insane idiot!," Cohen retorted in equal volume.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen," Examiner David Schwarz shouted, pounding his gavel in a futile effort to retain order.

"Yannacone leaned even closer to Cohen, blasting his face with charges. "You are just trying to confuse the matter, and you are mad that I've proved my case from the mouth of your own witness!"

"Visibly reddened and shaking with anger, Cohen countered, "You've proved nothing." The hearing examiner threw his gavel back to the table and walked out of the room. When all had settled, Cohen muttered toward the absent examiner, "Aw come on back and accept our apologies."

With my lawyer's spectacular victory in court, I kept on fighting on TV for the Green Bay neighborhoods plagued by odors and got dozens of families to show up regularly at city hall to complain when the stench reached high levels.

It began to smell a lot better in Green Bay. People who had lived in the smelly neighborhoods had an outdoor picnic to celebrate. I was their honored guest. United Press International presented me with an award for my "War on Stench."

A final thought: Before people in Green Bay got organized, they were powerless to stop the stench. "It's the smell of money," everyone said. But when some families called and wrote a TV station to complain and showed up in mass to protest the fouling of their neighborhoods, the city of Green Bay knew it had to do something and started cracking down on companies making a stink.