Eww! ‘Rotting garbage’ stench forces Crown Point residents to hide indoors

Crown Point residents say the stench of what smells like rotting garbage is making them feel ill and hide indoors as the city probes whether its own compost plant — a past repeat offender — is to blame.

Ward 4’s Coun. Sam Merulla reported receiving a flurry of 20-plus complaint calls and emails starting last week that universally describe the smell of “rotting garbage.”

Residents variously reported the smell was “burning our lungs,” making them feel “nauseous” and causing headaches.

Patricia Pearson said the “rancid” odour was so bad Sunday evening it made her partner “literally gag” when he briefly stepped outside their McAnulty Boulevard home, just north of the Centre on Barton mall.

“It’s been a problem for years, but it has been getting progressively worse,” said Pearson, who has lived in the area for 23 years and questioned whether her health is at risk due to long-term exposure.

Pearson said she has complained both to the city and provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

Spokesperson Gary Wheeler said ministry odour investigators have visited the neighbourhood repeatedly, but are still “gathering information” in order to confirm the source of the smell.

Public works head Dan McKinnon also cautioned the city has not confirmed the municipal composting site is to blame, adding the weather over the last week “doesn’t appear to support” the conclusion.

“Having said that, we are reacting as though it’s us and all hands are on deck in the neighbourhood investigating,” he said Wednesday morning.

Merulla acknowledged the odour search is still underway, but noted residents describe the smell as being similar to the “unique stench” tracked to the city’s own Burlington Street East compost plant in past summers.

“Clearly something is very wrong,” he said Wednesday. “If it is us (the city), we need to find a solution as quickly as possible. This is a quality-of-life issue for residents.”

Crown Point stretches from Gage Avenue all the way to Kenilworth Avenue, with the northern edge of the neighbourhood nudged up against the industrial Burlington Street area.

Burlington Street is densely populated with industry — and potential sources of odour — but the city’s own compost plant has been fingered for putrid odours during the past two summers.

The city said last year the stench was partly due to new changes to the compost curing process imposed by the province — essentially, a requirement to keep the material wetter.

It has made processing changes at the contractor-operated plant, hired an odour consultant and experimented with carbon filters in an effort to control the rogue smell.