Could there finally be relief for East Ladner residents dealing with foul odours coming from the Enviro-Smart composting facility?
Through letters, meetings and discussions, Metro Vancouver, the City of Delta and Enviro-Smart (owned by Green for Life Environmental) appear to be making progress with plans to enclose the 72nd Street facility in order to be in full compliance with a soon to be Metro Vancouver-issued air quality management permit.
Ray Robb, division manager with Metro’s environmental regulatory and enforcement services, told the Optimist that Metro is not contemplating any open composting for the company.
“It’s a closed facility, which is different than what they applied for,” said Robb. “We just need their commitment on a few things. We’ve asked for certain critical information and when we receive that and I don’t know when that will be, we will turn around a draft permit for them. We will hear their comments, we can make adjustments if need be and then issue the final permit.”
Robb said he did not know when the company would be responding.
“I can tell you the steps, I just can’t tell you a time,” he said. “We’re pushing and they’re pushing, but it’s important to get this resolved from our perspective, their perspective and the community’s perspective.”
Delta recently wrote to Metro Vancouver outlining a number of steps and conditions the city was prepared to accept to allow GFL to take on a significant increase in capacity at the facility in order to justify the new investment of a fully enclosed building and other major upgrades.
Delta says it would expedite a building permit if an application is received, but would only do so if the upgrades included a closed facility and that GFL was fully in compliance with Metro’s air quality management permit. Delta is also seeking commitments to address traffic and other community impacts related to capacity increases not regulated by the permit.
“We trust that the air quality management permit will be an effective tool to regulate the odourous emissions from Enviro-Smart, and with the improvements proposed, GFL will be able to address the existing concerns from neighbouring residents,” Mayor Lois Jackson writes in the letter. “Having said that, Delta would like certainty that any increase in capacity at Enviro-Smart would be directly linked to ongoing compliance with an air quality management permit.
“The odour issue is causing considerable concern to many residents in Ladner and we must ensure that all steps are taken to achieve an effective, long-term resolution to the issue at hand,” added Jackson.
The Optimist reached out to GFL for comment on the permitting process and was provided with a statement from director Brian King: “We are a professionally managed organization that operates our Delta organics compost facility to consistently high standards. We are seeking an expanded permit to allow us to invest in a sustainable, community friendly manner in an enclosed structure.”
Enviro-Smart has been the subject of hundreds of air quality complaints for the past couple of years, prompting Metro Vancouver to begin discussions with the company last summer about an air quality management permit.
Since then there have been a couple of community meetings where the public has called for action to resolve the odour issues plaguing the community.
