Residents in the Village of Ryley complained of a stench coming from Claystone Waste’s compost facility, which was caused by a technical glitch and is being remedied.
“We’ve had a technical glitch that resulted in our system malfunctioning, and that caused some of our process to not operate in its intended purpose, and as a result, the byproduct was an odour,” said Chief Executive Officer Corey Popick.
Claystone’s news release apologized for the smell, saying the odour was significantly higher than normal.
“All of us at Claystone Waste extend our sincere apologies to the residents of Ryley and Beaver County who have been affected by the compost odours coming from our facility over the past week. We recognize that it has been a challenging situation for you to deal with, especially during the summer when you want to spend time outdoors.
“The odours coming from our site have been significantly higher than usual. At first, we believed it was the result of weather conditions that were trapping odours in the lower atmosphere, similar to what it was doing with the smoke and moisture causing the fog and humidity we experienced last week.
“While this certainly didn’t help the situation, after continued investigation through the weekend, we discovered that the cause of the increased odours was due to a technical glitch that caused our aeration system to not operate properly. Proper aeration is important as it ensures the organics decompose in an aerobic state, which reduces the generation of smell. The smell that can be described as ‘rotten’ allowed us to diagnose the problem: a lack of oxygen going into the primary piles,” the release said.
Popick said they bypassed the technical glitch, controlling the system in manual mode.
“We have the ability to control the system hands-on until we can get it repaired, and the appropriate contractors are in the process of doing that,” he said.
“We’ve identified the glitch, now we’re working on redundancy measures as well. If and when something like that happens again, there’s redundancy controls in place to prevent an odour event. The goal is to be proactive to prevent reoccurrence,” he said.
Claystone is working to create an online form to simplify the process for submitting complaints.
“We are in the process of developing a new online form for people to submit any concern or complaint quickly and easily. This will assist us with gathering any information to help us better understand the issue and resolve it quickly.
“We take resident concerns very seriously and it is important for us to know if you are experiencing something unusual so we can investigate. We cannot stress enough the importance of residents contacting us directly with any concerns as this helps us track and monitor the types and locations of concerns, which supports us in taking the appropriate measures to address the issue,” the release says.
Claystone’s annual open house was held Wednesday, August 21, and provided tours of the compost facility and the landfill. Popick said they usually see about 50 to 100 people attend.
“We have an open house every year. Usually we try to do it in the summertime, because the climate is a little bit more amenable, and it’s usually more predictable to provide tours. We used to hold it in the spring, but it would rain too much, so we got shut down on tours,” Popick said.
Kari Janzen
Staff Reporter
