Richmond compost facility to shut down in 2019
A Richmond compost operation that has been the target of thousands of odour complaints over the past two years is planning to shut down.
In a statement posted on its website, Harvest Power, which runs the facility in east Richmond, said it had made “a business decision” not to replace its covered aerated static pile composting system — a requirement of its Metro Vancouver air quality management permit — and instead wind down its operations.
“There’s all these moving parts and we would need to invest multi-millions of dollars in order to meet some of these things in the permits and we can’t figure out the path,” said Harvest spokesman Stephen Bruyneel. “There came a point in time when the Harvest senior people just said we can’t make that kind of investment because we can’t figure out the answers to these uncertainties.”
Harvest expects to continue to operate the compost facility until sometime next year, and in the meantime will help its customers to divert their organic waste.
The move came as a surprise to Metro Vancouver, which regulates air quality in the region and has been working with the facility to make sure it complies with the conditions of its permit, which expires in April 2020.
“It’s our understanding that Harvest Power has chosen to wind down operations in Richmond for business reasons,” said Metro Vancouver spokesman Don Bradley.
He said the decision didn’t affect Metro Vancouver’s organics disposal ban or the region’s overall solid waste goals and plans.
“Metro Vancouver’s expectation is that existing facilities have sufficient capacity to absorb that organic material.”
They include a biofuel facility that opened in the Port Kells area of Surrey in March.
When asked whether Enviro-Smart Organics, a facility in east Ladner that has been offending residents with its odours in recent months, could receive more waste, Bradley said it’s too early to tell where organics would be diverted.
Currently, New Westminster, Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody send their organic waste to Harvest Power:
Coquitlam sends some of its waste to Harvest and some to a facility in Abbotsford.
Bruyneel said Harvest processes more than 100,000 tonnes of green and food waste per year, about half as much as it received a couple of years ago.
He said Harvest’s customers have been told about the impending closure.
Metro Vancouver issued the existing air quality management permit to Harvest in September 2016, and it contained a number of requirements, including reducing the height of compost piles, regularly replacing or refreshing biofilter media, pre-treating a material called odorous digestate, reducing volumes of more odorous materials, and completely replacing its aeration and biofilter system.
Many of the conditions had already been met, and Bradley said there had been improvement in terms of odour.
Complaints about Harvest Power’s operation began to increase in late 2016, and there were a total of 2,694 complaints that year, most of which came in between October and December. The next year, there were 1,396 complaints. To date, there have been 504 complaints in 2018.