BIG RISE IN COMPLAINTS ABOUT EXCESSIVE ‘SMELLS’ AT QUARRY
No permit breach despite 18 ‘odour tours’
RESIDENTS have made more than 500 complaints to the regulator about odour and other issues at a landfill site since the start of the summer, councillors have been told.
The Environment Agency says it saw a ‘spike’ of 318 complaints about Walley’s Quarry, in Silverdale, in September alone, following 95 in August, 79 in July and 53 in June.
But after carrying out 18 monitoring ‘odour tours’ close to the site since July, EA officers did not believe the level of smell put the site in breach of its permit on any occasion.
Representatives from the EA were giving evidence to a scrutiny review working party at Newcastle Borough Council, which is investigating the issues surrounding the site.
Operator Red Industries says it runs a compliant business, and the borough council has previously ruled that the levels of odour do not meet the threshold for statutory nuisance abatement action to be taken by the council.
The EA officers told the working party how they carried out regular ‘odour tours’ of the quarry.
While officers look at various issues, such as mud on the road, dust nuisance and bird activity, odour is the biggest subject of complaints.
Sarah Dennis, one of the EA’S lead officers for regulating Walley’s Quarry, told the councillors that it was one of the most complained about sites.
She said: “The site receives a high number of odour complaints. Generally it is maybe in the top
20 sites for odour complaints nationwide. It’s not always the highest, it has been on maybe a couple of occasions.”
The working group was told that since January 2019, EA officers had only found the site to be in breach of its permit on one occasion.
But councillors questioned the EA’S method for ascertaining whether odour levels put a site in breach. EA officers grade an odour issue on a zero to six scale, based on their own personal impression of the smell.
Councillor Dave Jones said it would make more sense to use an electronic monitoring device, rather than a subjective opinion.
He said: “I am a scientist myself, and I find it quite astonishing that we’re reliant on a biological detection method. We know your sense of smell accommodates depending on the intensity of the smell. There are handheld hydrogen sulfide monitors readily available, relatively cheap, that could be used to correlate against a well-known value from the World Health Organisation.”
Ms Dennis said EA officers had to work within the current legislation.
She said: “It has to be an agency officer who carries out that assessment. There is no scope for us to check permit compliance solely using a monitor.
“We can use it to support our monitoring. But to determine whether there has been a breach of the permit, it has to be based on the situation as perceived by an agency officer. That’s why we use different officers, partly to help with the fact that we detect things differently.”
While the EA has continued to carry out the odour tours throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the working group was told that the restrictions had affected the agency’s ability to respond to residents’ complaints.
Tim Lowe, from the Environment
Agency’s installations team, said he hoped this situation would be rectified soon.
Red Industries has been invited to give evidence at the working group’s next meeting.