A Brantford company has issued a letter to Sarnia residents in response to numerous complaints in regards to one of its operations in the city.
Wessuc Inc. said over the past two months, they have received notice of various odour complaints, some of which were related to the Scott Road Lagoons, to the Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks as well as to them directly. Sarnia News Today has also fielded a number of complaints from local residents about the foul smell.
In the public letter, the company apologizes for the odour, and said it does not take these complaints lightly.
The company stated that as a result of the grievances, Wessuc has taken several steps to mitigate the odour emanating from the Scott Road site, including the removal of 11,000 m3 of material stored in the lagoon and covering the lagoon surface with odour-absorbing material.
Wessuc said the lagoon was also treated with an organic deodorizing solution and two air monitoring stations have been installed. The company hopes new unloading equipment, expected to arrive in the coming weeks, will also help reduce odour potential.
Vice President Hank VanVeen said changes are in the process of being implemented to hopefully mitigate the stench.
"We're going to make the changes, we're going to see what happens. Based on our experience, and experience of others that we've reached out to, the changes we're implementing should have an impact on the amount of odour being generated," he said.
VanVeen said some of the short-term solutions should be in place by the end of this week but there's no timeframe for when the long-term solutions will be complete.
"One of the items for longer term was to plant different vegetation along the side of the lagoons -- so trees and shrubs, and things like that to reduce wind interaction. That's going to take a little longer."
The issue was also brought up during Monday's council meeting. City of Sarnia General Manager of Engineering and Operations David Jackson said they agree that the odour problem is unacceptable. In acknowledging that the issue is under the jurisdiction of the MECP, the city will continue to reach out to Wessuc "to push them" to implement the mitigating measures as quickly as possible.
The Ministry of Environment said the site is approved to receive and temporarily store a variety of waste materials that may be considered non-agricultural waste when applied to agricultural land.
It can include a wide range of organic waste such as treated sewage biosolids, assorted food wastes and some inorganic wastes.
The public letter, which includes background on the facility's operations, states that the only material stored in the lagoons is Non-Agricultural Sourced Material (NASM) and to date two types of NASM materials have been received at the site, biosolids or processed sewage and spent corn syrup from fermenting sugar processes.
The NASM received has been from sources in the Greater Toronto Area and Lambton County.
-With files from Natalia Vega