Aging whiskey blamed for covering homes and cars with black spots would be moved a half-mile away from its controversial location as part of a whiskey fungus agreement with the city of Louisville.
And the Louisville Metro councilwoman who represents the area said she’s unhappy about that.
“That’s not helping anybody at all,” said Metro Councilwoman Mary Woolridge, D-3rd District. “You’re just sending it around the corner.”
After being threatened by regulators last fall with $10,000-a-day fines for allegedly causing whiskey fungus damage, Diageo Americas Supply Inc., the owner of whiskey-aging warehouses on Millers Lane in western Louisville, has agreed to clear out its inventory there within 30 months.
Called “the angel’s share,” the liquor vapors drifting from Louisville warehouses have long been romanticized by distilleries, but reviled by neighbors as a smelly, property-damaging nuisance.
In all, the warehouses hold 185,000 barrels of whiskey, said company spokeswoman Alix Dunn. Those barrels marketed as Kentucky whiskey would be moved to the company’s Stitzel-Weller distillery property at 3860 Fitzgerald Road, while the rest would be sent to warehouses in Tennessee, Dunn said.
She said she did not know how much would remain in Louisville.
Dunn said the agreement “meets everybody’s needs” and would not result in any job losses in Louisville. She said the company may hire people to help move the whiskey barrels.
While the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District agreed to the arrangement this week, Woolridge said she plans to discuss it with Mayor Greg Fischer. Woolridge said her constituents don’t like the mess the vapor-fed fungus causes or the poor air quality from aging whiskey.
The Courier-Journal reported last September that violation notices served on Diageo, citing air-quality infractions at whiskey warehouses at 2349 Millers Lane, were the first since the district began looking into the vapor problem in the mid-2000s.
Diageo is a subsidiary of a British company that owns the Bulleit Bourbon brand.
No fines were levied as part of the agreement. But the company said it would vacate its Millers Lane warehouse — getting down to 50,000 barrels within 24 months, then down to zero within 30.
“They are not moving this whiskey out fast enough,” Woolridge said.
“There will be fewer barrels at the Stitzel-Weller facility, and those barrels will not be as close to residences as they are at the current location,” said Tom Nord, spokesman for the air district.
He said district officials have decided not to answer any other questions about the agreement or possible whiskey fungus issues with other whiskey warehouses in Louisville owned by other companies. Last year, he said district officials had believed there were ways that the company could control its vapors.
At the newspaper’s request, he released a letter from the company and a letter from the district, and said they would “speak for themselves.”
In the district’s letter, district executive director Lauren Anderson assured the company that its Stitzel-Weller facility was in compliance, not under investigation and had not been the subject of residents’ odor or fungus complaints. Anderson wrote that district would “fully investigate” any future citizen complaints regarding that facility.
In the company’s letter to the air district, Diageo official Andrea Wilson wrote that her company would vacate its operation on Millers Lane “in the interest of amicably resolving this matter.”
Wilson called the allegations by the air district “flawed because the conclusions were formed from incomplete science” and insisted that the company’s actions “do not constitute an admission of liability.”
The violation notices from last fall cited seven odor complaints and 27 complaints of a black, sooty substance on nearby property between May 2011 and May 2012.
The issue became especially sensitive after Fischer last fall questioned the science behind the formation of the whiskey fungus, which was more in line with the bourbon industry than his own experts and regulators.
Fischer then said he would recuse himself. He cited a potential appearance of conflict of interest involving his co-ownership of a building on Algonquin Parkway that's also owned by one of the plaintiffs in an unrelated lawsuit against the bourbon-aging warehouse facility blamed for causing the fungus.
“The mayor is pleased that APCD and Diageo were able to reach a settlement,” said Chris Poynter, the mayor’s spokesman.
