Richmond takes action against organic waste company

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RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) – The City of Richmond has issued a notice of default to Harvest Power, ordering the company to remedy ongoing odour issues at its compost facility on Lulu Island within 30 days or the city will take its business elsewhere.

The city says if the company, which handles the lion’s share of the region’s organic waste, doesn’t take action within a month it could lead city staff to take further actions which includes terminating its agreement with Harvest Power.

“We are absolutely committed to eliminating the foul odours that that have plagued Richmond and other communities,” says Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie. “We have been working diligently with the responsible agencies, including Metro Vancouver, the Province of BC and Harvest Power to resolve this issue. A number of actions aimed at addressing the issue have been taken as a result of our efforts, but ultimately the complaints are continuing. We will continue to use all avenues available to us until we achieve our objective.”

He adds the city doesn’t have the authority to directly impact Harvest Power’s operations, but they can refuse to send them waste.

“They need to fix what is causing the odour and we have to be convinced that the problems are not just temporarily fixed,” he says.

Last fall, Metro Vancouver confirmed it had fielded more than 1,800 smell complaints about Harvest Power.

Previously, Metro Vancouver had issued an air quality permit to the company, which is being appealed by both Harvest Power and other stakeholders.

The city has met with the Environment Ministry repeatedly and the mayor has met directly with the minister.

“We’re disappointed with the notice,” Harvest Power spokesperson Stephen Bruyneel says, adding the company was not aware that the notice would be given. “We’ve been obviously working very hard on the odour issues and over the past month we’ve started to see some significant process.”

Harvest Power’s improvements over the last few months have included decreasing or eliminating certain types of smelly waste at the facility, reducing the size of the piles, temporarily closing the Energy Garden and upgraded their bio filters.

Richmond already sends some of its waste to another facility in Delta and Brodie is hopeful another facility currently under construction in Surrey will open within a couple months.

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