INDEPENDENCE - A seafood company with years of complaints promised to fix facility issues at a special meeting on Thursday night in Independence. The town council passing a motion to give the seafood company Big Easy Foods and Gulf Island Shrimp and Seafood 30 days to fix the problem, otherwise the town will pull it's permits.

This comes after a 2OYS report sharing the odor that left residents gagging.

"It stinks. At night, it stinks. It takes your breath away," Nicole Flowers, who works in Independence, said.

Residents said, for five years, they have suffered the smell of spoiled seafood.

"We can't even sit on our front porch and enjoy our retirement because you can't do nothing but smell," Resident Sharon Vedros said.

The issue? Big Easy Foods and Gulf Island Shrimp and Seafood have a plant located in Independence, which residents said creates the smell.

"Think about it. It's rotten shrimp on top of human feces, urine blood LSU hospital waste, and whatever people flush down their commodes," Darlene Genova, another resident, said.

The waste from the plant is mixed in with the rest of the town's wastewater.

"They're making money, we're getting sick," Tricia Morse, a resident, said.

WBRZ reached out to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. It said the waste from the plant is pretreated before joining the town's wastewater.

In a statement to WBRZ, LDEQ stated:

"Gulf Island Shrimp does not have a direct wastewater discharge permit with LDEQ, as its wastewater is sent to the Town of Independence’s municipal treatment system under a pre-treatment agreement. LDEQ has conducted inspections and enforcement reviews of the Town of Independence’s wastewater operations, about which more detailed information is publicly available through the LDEQ Electronic Document Management System (EDMS).

Any further details regarding Independence’s wastewater treatment system should be obtained directly from the Town of Independence. LDEQ remains committed to ensuring regulatory compliance and environmental protection across Louisiana."

During Thursday's special meeting, the co-owners of Big Easy Foods and Gulf Island Shrimp and Seafood Larry Avery and Mark Abraham addressed residents complaints.

"We're very sorry for the families that are going through this. We're going to do whatever it takes to get the problem at our plant solved," Avery said.

The company said it is implementing new measures to handle the smell including the hire of additional water treatment experts and pretreatment methods. The company is also checking the pipes. Abraham said this week, the company learned there were additional lines in the plant taking discharge straight to the wastewater facility.

"We busted up concrete. Found two or three. Two lines that were not going through pretreatment. They were going straight to the city sewer plant," Abraham said.

Town Attorney Tim DePaula recommended giving the company 30 more days to get into compliance. Town officials and third-party group Curtis Environmental Services, Inc. will continue to monitor the plant. They claim the company is producing more than twice the amount of discharge allowed by the town ordinance regarding the public sewer.

"We come back, we get the numbers. If it's still outside the permit, then I would recommend, I would recommend termination of the ability to operate," DePaula said. "Is there a violation that can be fixed? If it can't be fixed, the appropriate remedy is suspension or revocation of the permit and the ability to operate."

The town will meet again in mid-May to check the company's compliance.

"The last, last, last resort, if the town wanted to, we can take our water straight from the shrimp plant straight to Amite," Abraham said.