One customer walked in Monday afternoon and told Joan Stewart she ought to call the FBI.
Surely, that horrible stench meant someone had put a body in the Amoco station’s Dumpster.
But air freshener in hand, Stewart pointed the man to the trail of hog entrails splattered in the intersection of Jake Alexander and Statesville boulevards.
The innards spilled from a truck hauling leftovers from Martin Pork Products, a hog-slaughtering operation located a few miles west on Woodleaf Road.
Formerly Bringle’s Custom Butchering, the plant has drawn criticism from neighbors since the new operators dramatically increased the volume of hogs slaughtered there. The neighbors have complained about insufferable odors as well as noise.
About 4:15 p.m., motorists at one of the city’s busiest intersections got an idea of just how bad a slaughtering operation can smell.
Mario Triolo, manager of Martin Pork Products’ Salisbury plant, said Coastal Protein, a sister company, hauls the hog entrails to a processing plant in Godwin, a small town near Fayetteville.
Triolo said the N.C. Department of Transportation requires that the trucks be sealed and watertight at the back so they don’t leak. But it is possible for the smelly remains to spill out the front if the truck driver has to slam on his brakes. Triolo speculated that another car probably cut in front of the truck.
Triolo said he drove all the way to Interstate 85 and found no other entrails spilled.
“It’s nothing intentional and nothing from neglect,” he said. “We’re trying to run a clean plant, and this is the worst thing that could happen. Now we’re back in the limelight again.”
James Smith, who owns a house near the slaughter operation, saw the truck drive away from the slaughterhouse Monday afternoon. He drove back to Salisbury a few minutes later and saw the entrails splayed across the intersection near the Salisbury Mall.
The smell hit him and any other driver with his or her windows open, as well as businesses near the intersection.
“The customers aren’t stopping to get gas,” said Stewart, the Amoco clerk, who sprayed air freshener every time the door opened. “They get out and then get right back in because the smell is so bad.”
She estimated that between 4:30 and 5:15, only about six people had stayed long enough to get gasoline.
Next door, at the BP station, the clerk said every single customer asked her about the stench.
Smith, who owns the home near the plant, also saw a lot of cars drive through the smelly material.
“How many people took it home to their garage?” he wondered.
Stewart — and possibly some other drivers — called Salisbury Police Department, and Officer A.M. Cooper and Fire Department Capt. D.H. Morris responded.
After getting a whiff of the problem, Morris summoned a firetruck and had two firefighters spread bags of absorbent, the same material they’d use on a gasoline or oil spill, on the innards.
Cooper also called Martin Park Products, and Plant Manager Mario Triolo came with two workers to shovel the remains into a large garbage can.
Because the entrails didn’t wash into a storm sewer, Morris said he didn’t see much consequence to the accident, other than the offense to everyone’s olfactory organs.
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