Texas Sues Darling Ingredients for Odors at Company’s Bastrop Facility
After years of noncompliance, TCEQ refers the case to the attorney general
AUSTIN, Texas — Following more than a thousand complaints spanning several years, the Texas Attorney General’s office has filed suit against the owner of a rendering plant in Bastrop County, another example of the extraordinary effort required to force state officials to take significant action against a corporate polluter.
Late last week, the Texas Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Division filed a civil suit against Darling Ingredients in Travis County District Court seeking temporary and permanent injunctions against the chicken-rendering facility whose foul odors have plagued neighbors for years.
“This is one of the most egregious public nuisance cases in Texas right now,” said Kathryn Guerra, director of Public Citizen’s TCEQ Watchdog Campaign. “It should never take a thousand complaints and multiple years for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to perform one of its most basic functions: environmental compliance enforcement.”
Bastrop County residents have filed more than 1,400 complaints with the TCEQ since May 2024, demanding that the agency take additional enforcement action on the same violations, which the TCEQ told Public Citizen is against its enforcement policy. TCEQ referred just 18 cases to the AG for civil enforcement last year.
The lawsuit states that, despite hundreds of resident complaints about the odor and an Agreed Order with TCEQ, Darling Ingredients continues to operate the site in violation of, and with blatant disregard for, state law and continues to interfere with the use and enjoyment of the surrounding community’s property. The State is seeking injunctive relief, civil penalties, attorney’s fees, post-judgment interest, and court costs.
The lawsuit is a win for Bastrop County residents who organized to hold community town hall meetings, raise awareness surrounding the ongoing noncompliance, and encourage residents to submit complaints to the TCEQ.
Darling Ingredients has violated its permits at its Bastrop facility every year since 2023. In 2024, the TCEQ adopted an Agreed Order requiring Darling Ingredients to reduce hydrogen sulfide emissions, implement odor-control measures, and operate pollution-control equipment in full compliance with its air permitting. In late 2025, prompted by a surge in complaints, the TCEQ issued two additional enforcement actions, alleging that the company failed to comply with the enforcement order and continued to exceed its permitted emission limits. It included new enforcement action for discharging wastewater into a local creek.
The State is seeking civil penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation, as well as court-ordered injunctions requiring the facility to immediately prevent nuisance odors, install air quality monitors, comply with hydrogen sulfide limits and properly operate its pollution control systems.