The Shape of Stinks to Come: The Green Revolution Devours Boulder County’s Open Space

 

I’ve written here several times about composting, the high-minded effort to turn waste into re-usable mulch. When it comes to setting up large-scale composting operations, these efforts tend to follow a familiar sad sequence. The initial proposal assures the public that the facility will be run according to the latest best practices and result in minimal odor, if any. Once the operation gets underway, nearby residents start to notice objectionable smells. The facility may deny being the source; there may be a back-and-forth as the town tries to document the stink and locate its origin. The facility may own up to being the source, and offer assurances that the smell is a mere hiccup that will disappear once the operation is fully optimized. When the smell and local objections continue, the town hires consultants who recommend installing some sort of odor remediation system. The result: the entire project comes in heavily over budget and leaves a lot of ill will in its wake. 

A common feature of these episodes is a failure to take potential odor issues seriously from the very start of the project. Why does this happen? I think it’s because proponents of large-scale composting don’t anticipate issues of scale. 

Home composting enthusiasts maintain little heaps of banana peels, apple cores, and lawn clippings in their backyards. These produce a small amount of innocuous odor. So what’s the problem in just adding everyone’s little heap to a town compost pile? 

The problem is that the amount of biomass in a commercial or municipal composting facility is exponentially larger than a backyard heap, and that the resulting odor production will also be exponentially larger. Massive odor generation is a certainty—it’s an operational issue that ought to be dealt with in detail at the preliminary engineering stage. It is not enough for planners and proponents to blithely claim that proper “turning over” and aeration of the pile will minimize odor. 

Now comes a story out of Longmont, Colorado, roughly 35 miles south of FirstNerve headquarters. Three residents have filed a lawsuit against a proposed composting facility—one that hasn’t even been built. Among other things, the lawsuit anticipates loss of property values should the facility-to-be emit “noxious odors.” Is this simply a case of NIMBYism or is there something more to it? 

What is at issue is a proposal by Boulder County to build the facility on ~40 acres of land that was purchased, with voter approval, as preserved open space with a perpetual conservation easement. By law, the county’s open space “can be used solely for passive recreation, agriculture or environmental preservation purposes.” But that’s no problem for the three county commissioners. By using an obscure real estate doctrine and a recent land purchase they claim to have extinguished the conservation easement, giving themselves the ability to build a compost facility on the land. The commissioners pushed their plan through with a minimum of public notice. 

The 235-page plan is a classic instance of blithe disregard for potential odor issues. It mentions odor only four times:

(1) In the architect’s narrative under “Buildings”, it states that waste will be delivered to a 17,590 square foot “tipping building”: “This building is a fully enclosed, fully contained component of the operation that will minimize odors, provide visual screening, and prevent any leaching of feedstock liquids into the surrounding soil.” 

(2) In the “Operations” section under “Odor control”: “The CASP [“covered aerated static pile”] bunkers have been shown to reduce odors by 90-95% over conventional open pile windrow systems.” 

(3) In the “Proposed Conditions” section under “landscaping: “Newly landscaped areas are strategically located for visual screening and to reduce sound and odor impacts of the facility.” 

(4) And on page 12: “The existing site border of trees creates a natural setback from the road and would provide visual and odor screening.” 

The idea that a line of trees and other landscaping features will reduce and screen odors is laughable. The tipping building may indeed contain odors—as long as the doors are never opened. And once the dumped waste is moved out of the building for composting, the odor issue pops right back up. Finally, even assuming that the claim about CASP bunkers is correct, that residual 5 to 10% of odors may still reach obnoxious levels, especially since the county intends to process “125 million pounds of animal manure, sewage sludge and food waste per year.” 

Yes, that’s right: this is not just a food waste compost pile. It includes massive amounts of animal manure and sewage sludge (i.e., human manure). 

The city of Boulder gives Berkeley, California a run for its money when it comes to progressive politics. Boulder County has a “Zero Waste Action Plan” that aims for a goal of zero waste by 2025. The three county commissioners (all Democrats) seem hell-bent on getting there, even if it means overriding the declared intent of county residents. Will three residents be able to stop the onrushing tide of sludge? Stay tuned. You can track their battle here.

UPDATE March 22, 2021

The Boulder County commissioners caved and will no longer consider placing a composting facility on the open space in question. The county has filed motions to dismiss lawsuits by neighboring property owners. Story here.

On the Radio

Welcome, CBC Radio listeners! Check out the topic tags and have a look around.

The Current host Piya Chattopadhyay and producer Acey Rowe put together a fine episode of their By Design series that turned attention to smell. It's called “Mapping urban smellscapes: Designing cities through scent”, and you can listen to it here.

Kate McLean and Daniele Quercia discuss their mapping of urban smellscapes, and Halifax Chief Planner Bob Bjerke talks about zoning stinky land use. Smell enthusiasts and lovers of liberty would do well to heed his warning about regulating urban smells: “Be careful what you wish for.” His town is notorious for its attempts to outlaw perfume.

Some other thoughts from listening to the broadcast:

Crowd-sourced smell maps with geo-tagged contributions are cool. But what about time-date tagging? How do the mappers distinguish static odors from transient, episodic ones? Is the smelly soul of a city in the occasional bursts or the steady background? Is San Francisco more typical at low tide or high?

Smell regulation is an open invitation to political abuse. Who could object to the smell of a bakery? Answer: activists who object to it using GMO wheat, that’s who.

Biosolids in the Punch Bowl

Mullumbimby, NSW

There’s been a disgusting stink hovering over the delightfully named Australian town of Mullumbimby, south of Brisbane in New South Wales. After being swamped with complaints, the shire council investigated and finally got to the . . . uh . . . bottom of the problem.

Turns out it was man-made, in more than one sense of the word. The stench—variously described as pig manure, farm yard, or animal enclosure—was the result of biosolids from the sewage treatment plant being spread on local properties as fertilizer. [No shit?—Ed.]

But not to worry.

“The work has been since been stopped due to weather conditions,” [Byron Shire Council acting general manager Mr. Phil] Warner said.

The weather conditions—of course. That’s the only possible explanation why a county’s worth of processed poop would smell bad. When will greens own up to the fact that their shit does stink?

Nasal NIMBY Graham Webb-Lee Plays the Islam Card

It’s come to this. A guy in the Stockport suburb of Manchester, England, lives for years next door to a take-out sandwich shop. New owners take over the business three years ago and replace the exhaust fan over their grill. Now the neighbor decides he doesn’t like the smell. He complains to the town’s environmental services department which makes repeated visits and finds no violation. 

But Mr. Graham Webb-Lee is not to be deterred. He complains to the town council that the new owners failed to get a planning permit when they replaced the exhaust fan. The council tells the shop owners that since an objection has been raised they must apply for a retroactive planning permit. The item is placed on the agenda for the October 14 meeting:

A retrospective Planning application (DC044716) for the retention of extraction vent to front of shop at 159 Adswood Road, Cale Green - recommendation grant.

Uh-oh! It looks like the council is set to approve the shop’s retroactive permit. So what does Webb-Lee do? He shows up at the meeting with a litany of complaints: the shop’s odor makes his clothes smell bad, his daughter has an eating disorder [?!], and 

“The vent is 12 inches from my front door. Every morning the smell of bacon comes through and makes me physically sick.”

Perhaps feeling that he isn’t making sufficient headway with the council members, he decides to play his ace:

“I have a lot of Muslim friends. They refuse to visit me anymore because they can’t stand the smell of bacon.”

That’s all the politically correct members of the Central Stockport Area Council Committee need to hear. Offend Muslim olfactory sensibilities? No way. They vote to force the cafe owner to remove the exhaust fan.

The owner is outraged—and baffled. She and her husband are Turkish; her husband is Muslim. The presence of cooking bacon doesn’t seem to be a problem for their Muslim friends who visit the shop all the time and even eat there.

This is a truly remarkable case of Nasal NIMBYism: it takes self-centered whining about food smells to a whole new level. Graham Webb-Lee actually plays the Islamic intolerance card against a pair of tolerant Muslims and wins. Beverley Akciecek and her husband Cetin support their seven kids by working in a sandwich shop 50 hours a week. They do so in part by cooking bacon for bacon-eaters. Now their livelihood is threatened by a smell-o-phobic douchebag and his cringing enablers on the town council.

Take a few minutes and browse the Stockport town website. It’s like Berkeley on the moors. Be sure to check out the 2009 annual Diversity and Equality Report. You’ll find that 40% of Council employees “have attended bespoke Diversity Awareness or Managing Inclusion training,” and that the town celebrates diversity, holds anti-bullying conferences, and observes Black History Month, Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Month.

That leaves a lot of space on the official Stockport calendar. How about designating Support for Immigrant Entrepreneurs Month? Or Defending Western Liberal Traditions Against Creeping Dhimmitude Month?

That might be too much to ask from this crowd.

Quick Sniffs

Speaking of Nasal NIMBYs, isn’t there a legal phrase in Latin that means “law firm of insufferable, overbearing douchebags”?

Someone’s taken the trouble of rating the “Top 5 Gassiest Dog Breeds.” No surprises—bulldogs and boxers both make the list—but I wish there was some data behind the rankings. [Via Tracey Beckerman.]

Is it the economy? Retail perfume theft is back in the news. Plus another big heist in Florida.

Do you have £35 burning a hole in your pocket? Then you can buy a scratch-and-sniff poster that “smells like the moon.” Hey, Buzz Aldrin, pull my finger!

And this exhibit of scented artwork sounds like fun.

Added October 16, 2010:

A new biography of Coco Chanel explores the business side of her success in fashion and fragrance.

Nasal NYMBY of the Month

Rosalind Rodburg is having trouble selling her $1.8 million apartment on West End Avenue because there’s a truffle shop twenty-one floors below.

Boo hoo hoo.

P.S. Hey, it’s tough times for the fungus, too.

P.P.S. Just find a sucker buyer with a specific anosmia to androstenone. Duh.

P.P.P.S. New York Times real estate columnist Christine Haughney compares truffle smell to “rotting carrots and lettuce.” Hunh? Oh, wait. She graduated from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Never mind.

Green and Stinky: UK Biofuel Plant Upsets Locals

Al Gore, call your aromatherapist.

Euphemism alert: According to the BBC, the biofuel company plans to reduce the offending odor by installing “oxidising equipment.” Apparently that’s how the environmentally committed media refer to exhaust stack burners.

Exit question 1: Should a biofuel company buy carbon offsets when it de-smellifies its production line by burning the exhaust?

Exit question 2: Should the people who deal with odor problems at composting facilities and biofuel plants be counted as “green jobs”?

Nasal NIMBY of the Month: Allan Tannenbaum

Here at FirstNerve we’ve covered the Nasal NIMBY beat for quite a while. Nasal NIMBYs demand to live a life unsullied by any aroma they find personally offensive. They bitch and moan about features of the smellscape that have been in place forever and taken for granted by everyone else: places like dairy farms, chocolate factories, tanneries, and the bread ovens at Subway.

The typical Nasal NIMBY feels his extremely refined sensibilities outweigh anyone else’s right to conduct a normal business that benefits the entire community. The Nasal NIMBY demands physically impossible or commercially unrealistic “odor remediations” but his ultimate goal is to force the object of his wrath to shut down or move out of town.

Our Nasal NIMBY of the Month® is Allan Tannenbaum, a 65-year-old douche bag in TriBeCa who is unhappy about living near an Indian restaurant. The story is locked away behind Rupert Murdoch’s tight sphincter the subscription barrier at the Wall Street Journal, but Gothamist has the key details.

American Smellscapes: Spring in the Pacific Northwest

It’s the time of year when the cottonwood trees in Washington State release tons of fluffy airborne seeds. As Seattle Times reporter Lynda V. Mapes describes the phenomenon she keeps her nose to the breeze:

That downy fluff is only one of the tree’s signatures. Come spring, just about anywhere there is fresh water in Puget Sound country, the sweet scent of cottonwood is in the air, the perfume that kicks off the out-of-doors season. The source of the scent is a flavonoid in the sticky sap within the tree’s buds that coats the leaves of cottonwood as they unfurl, protecting them against insects eager to attack the first fresh leaves of the year.

Meanwhile, a property owner in Harrah, Washington had some manure from a local feedlot spread on an acre or so of his fields. Nearby residents complained about the smell and since Harrah is on the Yakima Reservation, the U.S. EPA sent an Air Quality Monitor to sniff around for violations of federal regulations.

So let’s get this straight. Food scolds Alice Waters and Michael Pollan want us to eat locally grown fruits and vegetables and locally raised meat because it’s ecologically correct. But if local manure spread on a local field smells bad, that’s politically incorrect according to the environmental nannies.

I love green-on-green family feuds. Time to microwave some artificially flavored popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show.

Nasal NIMBYism: Ginkgobilobaphobia Sweeps America

Photo by Fritz Geller-Grimm.

The Telegraph’s “environment correspondent” Louise Gray writes about a growing backlash against gingko stink in the US. According to Ms. Gray,

In some US cities the trees are now being cut down for fear of pedestrians slipping on the fruit or because of complaints about the smell.

She says Easton, Pennsylvania, Bloomington, Minnesota, and Lexington, Kentucky have all banned female gingko trees.

So how bad is the smell? I described it in an American Smellscapes post:

My smell memories of Philly fester to this day. The streets between my apartment and the psych lab were lined with gingko trees and their ripe fruit would fall on the sidewalk and rot, giving off the stench of butyric acid (think stinky feet to the fifth power).

I should note that fetid gingko fruit has its fans. As I gingerly made my way to campus I would pass several old Chinese ladies gathering the stuff into garbage bags. They weren’t being altruistic: apparently they would cook off the smelly pulp and roast the tasty seeds.

Louise Gray’s article illustrates the cognitive dissonance experienced by the ecologically enlightened when they encounter a really bad smell. They can’t openly advocate the sex-based elimination of half a nonhuman species, no matter how stinky. So instead they promote the planting of more male trees to atone for the affront to Mother Gaia.

Guy Barter, Head of Gardening Advice at the Royal Horticultural Society, said more ginkgo were also likely to be planted in Britain in the future.

“With climate change they would be a good choice for the hotter, drier summers. We just have to make sure we plant male ones,” he said.

You have to love climate change: it can justify almost any social policy . . .

P.S. Ms. Gray is under the impression that Gingko biloba can spontaneously change sex. This is news to me, but I’m not a botanist. If true, it would knock Guy Barter's eco-atonement into a cocked hat. Any tree people out there care to comment?