Mount Prospect plans chemical assessment of animal feed producer

Mount Prospect has received thousands of complaints about odors escaping Prestige Feed Products, an animal feed producer at 431 Lakeview Court in the Kensington Business Center.

Now the village plans to look into just what is in the odors that have been compared to burned cheese and have fueled complaints from nearby residents and businesses in Mount Prospect and Des Plaines.

The village board at Tuesday’s meeting will consider authorizing the village manager to retain RHP Risk Management to conduct an airborne chemical assessment at a cost of $69,000.

“We want to get the scientific community involved to a greater (extent),” Village Manager Michael Cassady said. “This is really to assist the village to prevail in litigation.”

Village officials have reported receiving more than 1,200 citizen complaints of foul orders, nuisances and general smells over the past five years. This has led to prolonged and ongoing litigation involving Prestige, Mount Prospect and Des Plaines.

Citizens have raised concerns as well about potential effects.

Officials said RHP will provide both air sampling and emission dispersion modeling from multiple data points to assist the village in ongoing litigation. RHP uses toxicology and exposure modeling data to assess the risk profiles of chemicals.

“It is to have them do an assessment to see if there is anything bad in the air,” Trustee William Grossi said.

Trustee Vince Dante said he hopes RHP doesn’t find anything harmful.

“It’s bad enough that these poor people have to suffer the smell,” he said. “It is just God-awful horrible.”

Attempts to reach Prestige’s attorneys were unsuccessful.