‘Resolved’ odour issues plague dump
Area councillor worries ‘gaslit’ residents have quit complaining
Complaints about foul smells from upper Stoney Creek’s Taro industrial dump spiked in August despite owner GFL’s assurances at a May online community meeting that it had “resolved” the odour problems plaguing the site for the past year and a half.
GFL received 71 complaints in August — up from 20 in July and 11 in June — with 30 relating to the relocation of waste stockpiles to a new liner cell to comply with an April provincial order to lower the dump’s height, said Taro manager Lorenzo Alfano.
But GFL dismissed 18 of the August
odour complaints as unfounded because staff who investigated couldn’t detect the alleged smell, he told members of the site’s community liaison committee at its Sept. 9 online meeting.
“A lot of the times the wind direction does not correlate with the complainant, it doesn’t support the complainant’s claim,” he said. “The odour description is way off base, does not smell anything like what they’re describing.”
Alfano said he can’t give a timeline for breaking ground on what GFL and the province’s environment ministry have touted as a permanent odour fix — an enclosed plant to treat the dump’s stinky leachate, created when water percolates through waste.
While a GFL consultant told the liaison committee a year ago that he expected the plant to open by the end of 2024, Alfano said he is now hopeful construction can start next spring.
Slated for the site’s southeast corner, the plant needs city permission to hook into a trunk sewer along Upper Centennial Parkway as well as the environment ministry’s approval to amend the site’s licence, a process to include a 45-day public comment period on the province’s environmental registry, the meeting heard.
“We are dealing with the different staff members from the different
departments at the city,” Alfano said of the slow progress on the plant. “It’s at times very difficult to get everybody together.”
Alfano said he couldn’t provide an update on how GFL is faring in complying with an April ministry order to lower waste stockpiles that were up to 14 metres higher than allowed by the dump’s approvals.
But work is underway to relocate the waste to a new liner cell near the dump’s northeast corner, he said when asked by area councillor Brad Clark, who is a liaison committee member.
“I do not have a current height,” Alfano said. “There will be a survey conducted at the end of year to determine how much has been moved and we’ll know more then, obviously.”
Stephen Burt, the ministry’s Hamilton district manager, said GFL has made “significant improvement” in reducing odours from a pond that stores leachate before it is sent into a sewer west of the site.
The ministry required the company to hire a qualified professional to review the chemicals and processes used to treat the leachate, “and all indicators are that it has been stabilized,” even if it will still emit some odours at times, he said.
But Burt said he wants GFL to be more proactive in controlling odours from the relocation of the over-limit waste stockpiles, citing a recent late-night complaint.
“I think what we want to see, from a ministry standpoint, is appropriate actions before people leave for the day that caps that area if there’s any risk of (odour) coming when you’re not there,” he said.
“Responding at 12:30 at night, (it’s) difficult to get the loader out there and circulating the (cover) soil.”
Contacted afterwards, Clark said he’s frustrated that GFL and the ministry have been unable to resolve odour problems at the dump, which had generated few complaints prior to last year, when the stench became overwhelming on many summer days.
The ministry reported receiving more than 900 complaints between April and October last year, and Burt has previously said the potential violations have been referred to the ministry’s investigations and enforcement branch.
Although odours haven’t been as bad this summer, Clark said he believes waste, not leachate, is the main culprit and the area’s constantly changing wind direction makes detection difficult after the fact.
“They are fleeting. You get these whiffs of a really powerful odour and then it’s gone. And other times it hangs around all day,” Clark said, adding he worries many residents have stopped complaining because they’re tired of being “gaslit” by GFL.
“It’s pretty clear that the odour comes and goes — periodic is the best way to describe it. But I don’t really care if it’s periodic. It’s not supposed to smell.”