Photo by Erin Nelson.
The former Gold Kist chicken plant in Trussville, now used for overflow parking by Fox Factory. The plant shut down in September 2003.
The future of the former Gold Kist Inc. processing plant in Trussville is no spring chicken.
City officials and residents have now had 20 years to recruit industry and predict what might become of the former chicken processing plant, which closed its loading dock doors for good in September 2003. The plant had operated in Trussville since 1978, when Gold Kist Inc. purchased the plant from Purina Mills.
Trussville City Council woman Lisa Bright said that while the property is used by Fox Factory for overflow vehicle parking, the former plant is mostly abandoned. There is, however, a plan for its future.
Bright said the city has worked with Sain Associates Inc., an engineering firm, and a plan has been drawn up for what that acreage could become. The plan would require the demolition of the former plant building to turn the property into six to eight smaller, pad-ready lots, a task that would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Trussville Industrial Development Authority, which promotes industrial expansion for economic growth and employment in the city, could then recruit businesses to fill those lots.
“That plan would give us companies that would have probably 50 employees or less, which fits the Trussville model a little better,” said Bright, the council liaison to the Industrial Development Authority. “We’re not really set up infrastructure-wise to have a lot of heavy manufacturing coming in and out of the [Trussville Industrial Park].”
Bright said one Industrial Park lot, away from the former Gold Kist Inc. plant, is being prepared in this same way.
“If that is successful, that will hopefully allow us to start getting a little more,” Bright said.
Gold Kist had its troubles in Trussville, largely due to its proximity to the Cahaba River. In 1993, Gold Kist was fined $19,000 for violating water pollution standards by allowing too much of certain pollutants to enter an unnamed tributary of Little Cahaba Creek, itself a tributary of the Cahaba River, according to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. ADEM officials said at the time that Gold Kist violated discharge limits 35 times from June 1992 to July 1993 with excess amounts of ammonia, residual chlorine, nitrogen, fecal coliform, oil and grease.
Gold Kist at the time designed and installed a new wastewater treatment system. Gold Kist in January 1999 asked ADEM to establish looser nitrogen limits during the winter months, part of the company’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System renewal application. Then-Trussville Mayor Gene Melton, the Cahaba River Society and other groups spoke against the request, saying that it would stress the Cahaba River. Gold Kist argued that the limits were too stringent.
In early 2001, Gold Kist was fined $5,600 for more water quality violations. In response, the company announced that it would make $100,000 worth of improvements at the Trussville plant on Will Pond Road to stop the ongoing pollution. At the time, 77 miles of the Cahaba River were classified under the U.S. Clean Water Act as impaired by pollution from nutrients such as nitrogen. ADEM said at the time that legal and illegal pollution from Gold Kist may have contributed to the nutrient problem, though fertilizers and treated sewage wastewater were also believed to have contributed.
ADEM reported that Gold Kist broke discharge requirements 48 times between December 1995 and February 2000. In a consent decree that Gold Kist entered into with ADEM, the chicken processing plant did not admit or deny it violated its discharge permit.
Gold Kist announced the closing of the Trussville plant in September 2003 as part of its attempt to consolidate operations in Alabama. The move cut about 500 jobs. In 2005, the Trussville Industrial Development Board bought the Gold Kist property to expand the Trussville Industrial Park, and part of the property was then sold to McPherson Oil.
The Trussville City Council in December 2012 voted to purchase the site back for $1.7 million. The property at that time was owned by Scottsman Trades, which was part of McPherson Oil. The property included 10,000 square feet of office space and 120,000 square feet of warehouse space and had been valued at $4.5 million.
Early ideas for the property’s future included a city operations center or a home for all Trussville City Schools buses.
Trussville Fire & Rescue Chief Tim Shotts said the fire department uses the property only to access the Camp Coleman Road area when a train is blocking the railroad crossing. The railroad tracks cut directly through the Trussville Industrial Park, and Bright said a new road will be built to connect Camp Coleman Road to Commerce Circle and allow trucks to exit on and off Highway 11. The road will be accessed by turning onto the road between Subway and Pump It Up, and motorists will be able to follow it along the Industrial Park to the Stockton subdivision.
“It’s just a matter of getting that kind of set in when we want to take that big jump, because it’s pretty, pretty expensive to come in and tear that building down and get everything level,” Bright said.
