About a dozen Athens residents who would be living near a proposed pet crematory offered forceful, tearful and persuasive opposition to the proposal Tuesday night at a Planning Commission public hearing.

Catherine Bradley of Brownsferry Street gave tearful testimony, saying she had four beautiful children for whose health she is concerned.

“I do not make a lot of money and I cannot afford to move,” she told the Planning Commission and more than 85 people who turned out, both for and against.

Paws Memorial Services, of 15707 Quinn Road, Athens, is seeking a conditional use permit from the Planning Commission to move its operations to the Tennessee Valley Wholesalers building, a former plumbing and electrical supply, at 1500 U.S. 72 West at the corner of 72 and Brownsferry Street.

Bradley said she was also worried about the value of her property declining.

She asked commissioners to approve the permit only if they could guarantee that neither the residents nor the value of their properties would be harmed.

Invasion of rights?

Resident Bill King, who lives at 1425 12th St., told commissioners he “strongly opposed” granting the request by Paws owner Billy Sickler.

“It will severely harm the value of my property,” King said.

Citing articles written about crematories in Canada, King said crematories release harmful emissions and particulates. He gave the commission several articles supporting his comments.

He also said he and some others who live within 500 feet of the property line of the proposed business were not notified of the public hearing as required.

He said noise from the business would also be an issue.

“I view this as an invasion of our right to a safe and clean environment,” he said.

Testing requested

After several of the many people who spoke against the permit recommended the city test the air quality at the Quinn Road site before voting on the permit, Planning Commissioner Venard Hendrix recommended the city to postpone a decision on the matter until the next Planning Commission meeting on March 21.

He also proposed the city ask the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to conduct such a test. Commissioner Rod Huffman seconded and the request unanimously carried.

The results of the test will be returned to the commission and they will vote on the permit request. The Planning Commission will decide the matter; there will not be another public hearing on the matter, Hendrix said. The matter will not come before the City Council.

City speaks

City Planner Mac Martin told planning commissioners during the public hearing the city twice visited the current establishment at full operation on Quinn Road and did not notice the following:

• No perceptible odor;

• No visible particulate matter being expelled from the vents outside and atop the facility;

• Perceptible heat coming from the vents but no particulate matter or smoke;

• Noise coming from the facility at 500 feet away was similar to the noise from a commercial heating and air-conditioning unit;

• No vibration perceived or dust produced during cremation process;

• Animals stored in freezer units until cremation occurred;

• Facility clean and very well maintained;

• Only inorganic matter produced at the site are the plastic bags the animals are stored in prior to cremation;

• Medical waste disposal unit picks up needles used to euthanize the animals at veterinary, shelters and animal hospitals;

• Each incinerator has a filtration system where animals are incinerated at a high temperature of 1,600 degrees. The air within the chamber is burned again at a very high temperature using an afterburner forcing air to the bottom of the chamber and through a filtration system before proceeding up through the vent and out the building.

“We could not find any evidence of noxious impacts,” Martin said. “Taking into consideration noise, odor, visible emissions, we could not find any.”

Sickler told those attending the public hearing the property was in decline when he first visited. He said he had a gun drawn on him once when entering the building and found two people staying there to keep warm.

He said law enforcement officers determined at one point there was an active methamphetamine lab in the building and two or three in some surrounding woods.

“Whatever I do with this building, it’s going to be a lot safer for the community,” Sickler told the audience. He said he would have to bring it to fire code, including adding a sprinkler system.

City conditions

Although the city recommended the Planning Commission grant the conditional-use permit, it recommended a list of 10 conditions the owner should meet in order to operate the crematory, Martin said. The list includes the following:

1. The operation applies for and receives air permits on each machine from ADEM in order to ensure the emissions from the facility (particularly with the incineration of the plastic bags housing the animals on arrival) are not above limits prescribed by law and harmful to the surrounding neighborhood. However, if ADEM states no air permit is needed for the units operated at this business, the owner/operator shall forward said communication to the city planner prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy.

2. Any and all ashes not retrieved by customers are either bagged and disposed of through city sanitation services or transported to a location outside the city limits in a fully enclosed container.

3. Additional approval by the Planning Commission will be required for an expansion beyond eight incinerators (double the number of units observed in the field) to ensure what impact the facility does have on surrounding properties is not magnified to the point of being noxious.

4. The facility may be able to operate up to two units past normal business hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for emergency cremations for individual customers. Group cremations shall occur during the normal business hours mentioned herein.

5. The business shall not engage in the incineration of municipal or county animal waste, such as “road kill.” All animals cremated at the facility must either be pets delivered by individual customers, or from an animal hospital, veterinarian or pound.

6. The business shall not engage in the cremation of animals greater than 250 pounds.

7. All animals delivered to the facility must be transported from the delivering vehicles to cold storage or the cremation units entirely within the enclosure of the building. (So no dead pets are visible.)

8. The facility shall operate in a clean and tidy manner.

9. The conditional-use approval is subject to revocation by the Planning Commission upon its finding that any of the above conditions have been violated, its finding of any violation of federal, state, or local laws/regulations in connection with the conditional use, and/or a change in the zoning ordinance that is applicable to the zoning laws concerning conditional uses that would prevent, limit or otherwise restrict this use.

10. City officials may visit the property from time to time, upon reasonable advance notice, to review and audit compliance with these conditions.

Incinerator maker speaks

Erny Czirok, Matthews Environmental Solution’s pet-equipment specialist for the U.S. Region, said the state sets rules for crematory businesses, including an allowable limit for particulate matter of .08 parts per million. He said Matthews incinerators continually fall below the allowable limit at .02 to .038 ppm.

He said the afterburner that incinerates any remaining particulates produced by the cremation process heats at 1,400 to 1,600 degrees before it is released into the atmosphere.

He said the company is approved in all 50 states and Underwriters Laboratories checks the plants where incinerators are manufactured every 12 to 16 months, checking and rechecking the equipment.

Planning Commission Chairwoman Gina Garth questioned Czirok’s presentation literature, which included a chart comparing the combustion of an automobile, a diesel truck and a cremator for two hours and the cremator has lower emissions than an automobile.

“That is correct,” Zircon said. “That is because of the afterburner chamber.”

Limestone commissioner speaks

Speaking in favor of the proposal, Limestone County Commissioner Jason Black said he owns property on Acorn Hill Circle directly behind the proposed crematory and he is not worried about such a facility lowering his property value.

He said the crematory would be over a $1 million addition to Athens and would improve an existing building that might otherwise continue to stand empty and decline. (He later clarified that he did not live in the property on Acorn Hill.)

He said the crematory will not dispose of road kill. The county buries those animals and the crematory never has and never will do that. He also said he has visited the Quinn Road property many times and has never noticed any odor or particulate emissions.