WESTLOCK — Several Westlock residents are voicing concerns over the ongoing foul smell they believe is coming from the AltRoot compost facility at the Westlock Regional Landfill, which they describe as holding them prisoner in their own homes.
Among those complaining are Burt and Stella Bartlett, who moved here in June 2022 from British Columbia and were not aware of the facility when they bought their east-end home. Since then, they have experienced strong odours almost on a daily basis.
“When we moved here, all of a sudden we started smelling this odour,” said Burt. “We never found out it was a compost facility until six or seven months down the road.”
Like other residents the couple questioned its origins and thought it may be area farmers using fertilizer or a chemical on their farmlands but after speaking with other residents they learned about AltRoot and how compost was being brought in from several communities, including Edmonton.
“We’re getting the smell three or four times a week, it’s not just once in a while. You cannot sit outside, you have to shut your windows, It’s sickening,” Stella said.
More than a year later, they are still fighting the foul odours.
“If I had known this, we wouldn’t have bought a place in Westlock. We would have found another place to move,” he said.
The Barletts feel they and residents should have been informed about a compost facility in Edmonton that was shut down several months ago and how the AltRoot faciltiy was going to affect the town with regards to the odours.
“Why wasn’t the composting (facility) put further out of town so it did not affect the people in town,” said Stella. “How long is it going to take them to fix it? They could say (they’re) going to fix it, but it could be six, nine or 12 months down the road … that’s not acceptable. Something has to be done.”
Another Westlock resident, Kevin Ching, has also complained about the foul odours in town and noted he and several other residents were confused as to “where the smell was coming from” for about a year, adding there has been a lot of misdirection and misinformation about it.
“Talking to councillors, they’re telling us basically that they don’t know when they’re going to be able to stop the smell and AltRoot can’t say when they’re going to stop it,” said Ching. “If the wind’s coming from that area, there’ll be nothing they can do as they’re spreading (the compost). This is their biggest problem.”
He said compost materials, including meat that comes in from grocery stores in Edmonton, are a big concern for him and he recalled how organic compost material used to be buried underground.
“They can spread wood chips over top of whatever they’re using, so whatever it is, still it does create that really strong smell of vomit throughout the whole eastern part of town,” he said.
He has spoken with operators at AltRoot about his concerns as well as several town councillors, who he said did not seem overly worried about the odour issue. Ching said Mayor Ralph Leriger told him “they’re doing everything they can” but in a year and a half nothing has changed.
“It’s very frustrating … we’re really in a tough position because they’ve put this too close to the town and it affects so many people. Retired people want to just enjoy their retirement.”
Although the odours are not constant, he and others often feel like they are a “prisoner in their own home” for several days each month due to the foul smell.
Since both Ching and the Bartletts have brought their concerns to the attention of the town, they feel another step may be needed to resolve the issue.
“There’s a lot of people that are concerned the same as us, so maybe it is time for some of us to get together to see what can be done,” said Stella.
AltRoot Improvements
AltRoot operations manager Brian Wonnacott said the facility has been working to address the odour concerns and recently invested $300,000 into the facility this summer, despite some obstacles over the past several months.
“We encountered some challenges last year. We knew this was a poor odour and we didn’t know where it was coming from,” said Wonnacott. “This is not something we take lightly ... It’s a great responsibility that we’re doing for our community and our overall community in the province.”
Wonnacott said they learned of three main process upsets in their first year of operations, that resulted in poor odours.
“Sometimes we didn’t know what they were but we just kept digging and digging … and eventually we found the source and we put in mitigation measures so that didn’t happen again.”
He also pointed out the high volume of (organic) material they received in their first year due to a lack of capacity in the region, with nowhere for the material to go.
Wonnacott said they are aware of one facility in Edmonton and the challenges they had, that was eventually shut down for improper practices. AltRoot knows they have to to mitigate things to “stop that from happening here.”
“We couldn’t do this if we’re only processing Westlock’s organics. Westlock’s saving a bunch of money because of it and for us doing it too,” he said.
On Oct. 6, the Town of Westlock posted a statement on social media addressing the odour concerns.
“AltRoot genuinely cares about the welfare of our community; this is their home too. They understand your frustrations about the odour and are wholeheartedly committed to finding a solution,” the statement read, noting the proposed and ongoing improvements to address the odour concerns.
They include building a secondary process to aerate compost for a longer time to reduce baseline odour and improve the quality of the finished compost, refining the recipe used to spur the compost breakdown and installing remote temperature monitoring to better control their processes and their response to changes and working to construct a shallow pre-treatment holding pond to capture run-off and further reduce odours.
AltRoot is classified as a Class 1 compost facility under Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, which can make outdoor organics, among other items, and may include separated organics, food waste, bio-solids and agrifood processing waste.
The location of AltRoot and its proximity to town has also been questioned, but Wonnacott said there is no better place for a composting facility than at a landfill site.
“There are so many benefits to it. It makes so much sense that a compost facility is located within the grounds or at an existing landfill operation,” he said, noting that when they first designed the facility, they were told by industry officials if they were able to expand, to look at the space and land allotted, and plan the facility to allow an expansion if needed.
“The expansion that we’re building is on pad and it has nothing to do with expansion of our facility,” he said, noting the improvement in their process. “We’re still only able to take in 20,000 tonnes — the expansion that we’re building, the $300,000 that is just to mitigate and reduce odours and that is on pad.”
A secondary operation they’re building will almost double the time that the compost is under aeration and that will reduce baseline odours significantly, noted Wonnacott.
Heavy rains this summer caused delays for the expansion as well as delays in ordering equipment and parts for the operation.
“We’re waiting on the right part to come in to finish that,” explained Wonnacott. “They used to be able to get this part in two days in Edmonton but in the last three years because of COVID-19, it takes weeks or months to get these new parts in.”
He also noted challenges with the process pond this summer due to heavy rains to which they’ve applied four treatments since then.
“We didn’t know that that (would be a) problem last year, but apparently it’s quite an issue. We are putting up a bunch of money into that pond to treat the water too.”
Wonnacott said they are always looking to improve and build better management practices, such as the commercial organics diversion project for Westlock that is being introduced to help address some of the concerns and help find solutions.
“We’re all learning from this and we can improve it ongoing,” said Wonnacott. “These are positive things which we’re doing.”
Residents who have concerns about odours can call Environment Canada’s hotline at 1-800-222-6514.
