NEWCASTLE – Something in the air here made Rhonda Sandness sick on July 29.

“It was so pungent and so strong,” Sandness said. “It smelled like dead cattle and propane mixed together. I couldn’t see. My eyes were watering. My throat felt like it was closing up. I couldn’t breathe.”

Forest Sullivan says it filled his home, killed birds in his backyard and sickened his dogs. The sulfuric acid smell lingered for days and caused Carol Wolfe’s throat to burn and bleed.

Sullivan called 911 on July 29 to report what he assumed was a noxious odor – and a public safety issue – caused by the Wyoming Refining Co. Bad smells are not unusual at the oil refinery, which is located on Main Street in this town of 3,000.

The sprawling refinery covers 46 acres on the western edge of Newcastle. But by U.S. refinery standards, the refinery is small, ranking 127th out of the nation’s 141 refineries.

On average, it turns 14,000 barrels of crude oil into petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, propane and butane every day. By comparison, the nation’s largest refinery processes 1.24 million barrels of oil every day.

That industrial process produces its share of odors, Wyoming Refining’s president Pat Havener admits.

The refinery does not, however, admit to causing the illness-inducing smells July 29.