Boston Hides & Furs Ltd, a Chelsea leather company, is said to have abandoned 40 tons of decaying cow hides at an abandoned tannery building in Waterboro, Maine, USA.

One hundred loaded pallets were left at an unused tannery facility in Waterboro attracting swarms of flies to the town. The company has since contributed to the cleanup by fumigating the hides, sheathing them in plastic and placing them on refrigerated trucks at the site. The future of the hides is still to be decided and the company still hopes to sell the pelts to a glue factory.

It is not the first time Boston Hides & Furs has attracted notice for its environmental record. A group called Toxics Action Center in 2001 listed the company third on its annual "Dirty Dozen" list of the worst environmental offenders in the state.

It is not yet clear if state fines would result from the storage of hides that led to the fly outbreak.

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