Press coverage for Georgia Trip:

Lawyer To Tour Georgia Plant Linked To Salmonella

News Now Update: Tour of Salmonella Tainted Peanut Plant

Peanut Victims’ Lawyers Visit Blakely Plant

PCA plant conditions ‘disturbing’

Attorney: Mice, leaky roof found at Georgia nut plant

I finally made it into the Blakely, Georgia Peanut Corporation of America plant.  Despite being scrubbed a bit in the last few months, we still found mice and cockroaches in the plant with several spots where the roof had been clearly leaking.  Really little question that any company purchasing product from this plant should have been on notice of the risks had they ever taken the time for a quick visit.  There was no lights nor air-conditioning in the plant (someone did not pay the bills I guess).  I did find the below letter sitting in the fax machine in the office.  Guess it came just before "the lights went out in Georgia."  As Mr. King’s request I have taken the letter off line.

After being in Plainview and Blakely, where over 100 people lost their jobs, after seeing untilled peanut fields as I drove across South Georgia, I wonder were the hell the Peanut Association and the Georgia Department of Agriculture was in the years after the 2007 ConAgra Peter Pan Peanut Butter outbreak?  What more could have been done to prevent 700 illnessses and nine deaths?  What more could have been done to prevent over $1B in losses by business?  Perhaps Stewart Parnell woud have told Larry King?