[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/TheGreen-0926214-Compost.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Tom Byrne and contributor Larry Nagengast discuss the battle of over the odor coming from Peninsula Compost's Wilmington facility.]
Ask anyone who lives near the Peninsula Compost’s Wilmington Organic Recycling Center about the facility and chances are they will sum it up in two words: “It stinks.”
The center, on the edge of the Southbridge neighborhood, in the shadow of I-495 and not far from the Port of Wilmington, wasn’t supposed to smell. At least that’s what Peninsula told the neighbors in 2007 and 2008, what the facility was planned and built. Peninsula even took a group to Nantucket, Mass., to see what they described as a similar composting operation.
“When residents reported back to the community, they were surprised, because there was no odor,” recalls Marvin Thomas, who was president of the Southbridge Civic Association at the time.
But there’s plenty of odor now, and not just in Southbridge. State Rep. Debra Heffernan (D-Bellefonte, Claymont, Edgemoor) says winds carry a strong scent of decaying food wastes north into the Edgemoor and Bellefonte areas of her district. State Sen. Greg Lavelle (R-Sharpley) has caught a whiff or two from time to time in his Sharpley neighborhood. “I’ve been getting complaints for at least a year. Does it go as far as Chadds Ford? I don’t know,” he says.
But this much is clear: the political winds are not blowing Peninsula’s way, as 18 state legislators recently joined an overwhelming chorus of residents and leaders of the New Castle County and Wilmington government in asking the state to shut the composting center down.
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David Small, who took over as secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control in July, will soon have to make that decision. A Beneficial Use Determination for the composting facility, an operating permit issued by DNREC, expires on Sept. 26 and Peninsula is seeking a renewal. As part of the process, a public hearing was held last month and written comments were filed afterwards. After DNREC hearing officer Robert Haynes completes his report, Small will review it and make his decision.
The sudden entry into the battle by suburban lawmakers and high-ranking city and state leaders has given some hope to community leader Lee Jarmon and Rep. J. J. Johnson, whose district includes Southbridge and neighborhoods just outside the city that are close to the compost facility.
“With anything other than immediate closure, I would be disappointed,” Johnson says.
But the criteria for making the decision are not clear.
“For the most part, odors are not something we deal with,” says Bill Miller, environmental program manager in DNREC’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Section, which oversees the facility. The unit has standards associated with the waste materials that Peninsula transforms into compost — for example, the concentrations of substances like arsenic, lead, mercury or fecal coliform permitted in the mix of food and yard wastes — but not for measuring the odors generated by the process.
“Odor is subjective,” Miller says. “There are no regulatory limits concerning what we smell through the human nose.”
“Odor is hard to measure, hard to quantify,” says environmental activist Alan Muller, executive director of Green Delaware. “You can’t always be certain, if you’re miles away, that it’s coming from a particular facility.”
According to its operations plan, the composting facility is designed to recycle 160,000 tons of material a year into compost , with an anticipated mix of 120,000 tons of food waste and 40,000 tons of leaf and wood type wastes. Peninsula may also accept an additional 5,200 tons of hatchery wastes for processing and may add up to 40,000 tons of sandy soils each year to produce topsoil.
For nearly two years after the plant opened in December 2009, there were few problems with odors. Then, from August 2011 through March 2013, Peninsula was cited three times for a variety of permit violations, and a DNREC compliance assessment in April 2013 found that “a majority of the violations were continuing.” Those violations resulted in a $25,000 fine, which was reduced in April to $15,000 as part of an agreement that required, among other things, development of a new “odor minimization and monitoring plan.”
Over the years, “it got progressively worse,” say Lee Jarmon, head of the 913 Alliance, a coalition of civic organizations in the area along Routes 9 and 13 south of Wilmington. “They never lived up to the promises they made.”
According to Jarmon, the odors cause area residents to experience respiratory problems, shortness of breath, nasal congestion and watery eyes. The smell enters homes and cars through ventilation systems, he says, and residents who don’t have clothes dryers in their homes don’t like to hang their wash on a line outdoors because the odor gets into their clothes, he says.
The 913 Alliance has been pressing Peninsula and DNREC to address the problems since early 2012 but has seen little progress. “We began to create awareness in the community, and we found out that they [Peninsula] would make promises but they never kept them,” Jarmon says. “The promises turned into timelines. They were just idle words. We got fed up.”
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In a written statement, Ken Horn, Peninsula’s operations manager, said “there are and have been many activities that have/will reduce odors,” including “routine site wash down, installed air curtains, implemented mobile sprayers, implemented tractor sweepers across the site, prohibited certain inbound materials,” and adjusting the composting materials to achieve a higher carbon to nitrogen mixture.
But Jarmon, Johnson, Thomas and others interviewed say any adjustments made recently by Peninsula have not resulted in any noticeable improvement.
Muller said he raised questions when the compost facility was proposed in 2007 but believes that promises of a clean facility, made by a group of backers led by the EDiS Company, one of the state’s most prominent construction firms, and using technology developed by W.L. Gore & Associates, coupled with pledges to employ local residents and support the community, made the idea too hard for state and Wilmington officials to pass up.
“A lot of processes may seem to be beneficial, wind farms and composting, for example, but each should be evaluated on its merits,” Muller says.
“It’s not rocket science to know that composting sinks,” he says. “If it’s in piles, it will produce odors, and the larger the piles, the more odors it will produce.”
Miller, the DNREC manager, says there is no deadline for Small to decide whether to issue Peninsula a new permit. Peninsula would be permitted to continue operating under its current permit until a decision is reached.
One lawmaker, Wilmington City Councilwoman Hanifa Shabazz, whose district includes Southbridge, is offering Peninsula a measure of support, but even she is hedging.
“This industry is needed. We need progressive ways to deal with our waste,” she says. “I’d like them to fix it and come back without the odor.”
If Peninsula can’t do that, it should be shut down, Shabazz says.
But Southbridge residents and their supporters plan to keep the pressure on.
“It’s really degrading,” says New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon. “I’m concerned about how it’s destroying the quality of life of the people who live near there.”
Although the county has no official jurisdiction over the plant, since it is located within Wilmington city limits, he says his office “would consider some kind of legal redress” if the state does not close it down.
“The community has been suffering since 2009. I think they have had ample time to correct the problem,” says Southbridge resident Thomas, who admits he has “little or no faith in DNREC” to take strong action against Peninsula.
“I understand the idea of diverting materials from landfills, of being green, but this has to be balanced with the quality of life,” Heffernan says. “It’s a great green business model if it works, but now it’s an experiment that’s not working well.”