7-6 news: Rotting meat not health hazard, says former owner of rotting meat
"If someone would have told me I had left the building in disarray, if there had been rats, mice, vermin running around, I would have said, 'You know what? I'm a negligent person,'" Parente said, according to the Associated Press. "I feel bad for the people of Bridgewater who had to live with the smell. But that's really where the extent of my feeling bad goes. It wasn't ever a health hazard to anyone."
The meat, he said, was a collection of organs that were to be sold to a pet food company. When the building's freezer broke in December, he expected the winter weather to keep the meat at the right temperature. When he last checked the meat in May, a broken water pipe had iced it over. The summons to remove the meat came on June 10. Parente said he had workers remove some of the product when word got out that it was infested by maggots and creating a stench throughout the town.