County compost operation draws odor complaints

Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency officials say they’ll review options for reducing odors from its composting operations, which are expected to increase several-fold over the next few years.

At an agency board meeting Wednesday, board Chairman Fred Wadnola said there have been recent complaints from several different property owners downwind of the compost pile.

“We’ve had several people call about smells,” he said. “We’ve had complaints from Ulster Landing Road, we’ve had complaints from the airport, we’ve had complaints ... from Whittier, and then, last week, our neighbor (on state Route 32) called.”

Wadnola noted that the neighbor’s complaint was from a person who keeps farm animals.

Officials said the odor should only occur once day per month when the material is moved from aerating pipes to a ground location.

“When we turn the pile over you get (an odor) for about eight hours,” Wadnola said. “The smell, it lingers a little bit, then it’s gone.”

Board member David Gordon suggested the agency considered methods used at a solid waste facility he visited last year in Europe.

“They have a mechanism that sucks the air down to the ground,” he said. “They run it ... basically through a big bin of wood chips. It does a pretty damn good job for something of that size, you really don’t smell it that much.”

The agency started the composting operation in 2012 under a permit that initially allowed 500 tons of food waste per year to be disposed of in 40-by-100-foot area. The program is now allowed to process 2,500 tons of compost per year in a 90-by-125-foot area.

Expansion of operation is being planned under a $237,000 state Department of Environmental Conservation grant intended to cover a three-year effort to have large institutions divert material from the county’s waste stream. County officials are seeking to have the program fully in place when state regulations change in 2021, when facilities that produce more than 2 tons of food waste annually will be required to have a composting plan in place.

Officials have not discussed how much additional space will be needed for composting, but expect it will be on part of a two-acre parcel near the current composting site.