Some of the people who have written in about the composting facility in Central Saanich either don’t live in the areas affected or must have major olfactory problems.
Sure, living near farms comes with smells but the odour that’s afflicted well over a thousand homes in the Tanner Ridge, Keating, Island View, Martindale and Hunt Valley areas this summer is completely different from the occasional farm aroma.
What has been generated by the Foundation Organics composting facility at Stanhope has been unrelenting, rancid and cloying.
Contrary to the Stanhope Farms and Foundation Organics lawyer’s claim that the odour has nothing to do with the composting, the stink didn’t start until the plant got into production.
How many ways can this composting facility be in the wrong?
By composting huge amounts of waste that it can’t possibly use on site? By generating massive truck traffic, noise and leachate issues? By producing horrific odour affecting thousands of people? Only to name a few.
I’m left with many questions.
For the partners in Foundation Organics: is being green really about the money for you?
For Central Saanich council: why was a building permit issued for this operation when it was so obviously out of character with the surrounding neighbourhood?
For the CRD: how much longer will Foundation Organics be allowed to operate outside the rules?
And perhaps the most important question of all: what was the CRD thinking to license this business in that location in the first place?
Dolores Bell
Tanner Ridge