Wet Plant Guelph, Complosting Facility

October 2009
Surplus capacity at the plant will be used to process the Region of Waterloo's green waste.
This will help offset the capital cost of the plant

April 2009
Contract for the construction of the Wet Plant was awarded to Maple Rienders.
The process used is completely different than the original plant and the composting
occurs in sealed cement vaults where the odours are contained.
Maple has constructed similar plants in Hamilton, Peel and Nova Scotia.
The technology is used in over 100 locations around the world.
Construction will begin in the fall and the plant will open late 2010

2008
This is taking a lot longer than I had hoped, please have patience.

November 23, 2007

He said it was sort of like the passing of a tornado, or perhaps, the cleanup of a toxic spill -- that point in the aftermath of a disaster in which people step outside their homes and begin putting their lives back together.

The Dunlop Drive facility, which opened in 1996, processed its final bag of organic waste last June and closed soon after, taking with it a stench that area residents say had permeated the nearby neighbourhoods for years.

Spira said the odour was so pungent, it stopped people from relaxing outside their homes. Like other residents of his picturesque east-end neighbourhood, he likens the smell to that of "rancid garbage."

But Spira said everything changed when the wet plant stopped operating. The stench vanished and people started having barbecues, hosting pool parties and enjoying life on their properties.

"There was a definite sense of relief," he said. "We got to have a social life again instead of being prisoners in our homes."

It's been a year since the previous city council shut down the composting plant.

Several members of the last council have stressed the decision to close the plant was made strictly because the Ontario Ministry of the Environment had concerns about odour issues at the site.

Last summer, the ministry charged the city under the Environmental Protection Act regarding odours from the plant.The case remains before the courts.

For months after the plant closure, Guelph's organic waste was sent to a landfill by a contractor. Since at least October, it has gone to an incinerator in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Mayor Karen Farbridge criticized that practice at her inaugural address in December, prompting enthusiastic applause from hundreds of people at the River Run Centre.

She said bringing the plant back online is a priority. Senior city officials say it would take at least 18 months to accomplish that. Council has earmarked a total of $5.5 million in the city's capital budget to reach that goal.

"From what I've heard from the community, shipping waste down to the U.S. to be burned is just not acceptable," Farbridge said in an interview this week.

But there are legal, economic and political issues looming, and critics say council is being far too optimistic about rebuilding the compost facility.

Spira said the city has "a snowball's chance in hell" of doing it with $5.5 million.

He's the president of the newly formed Guelph Waste Management Coalition. The group was launched in response to concerns surrounding the wet plant. He said the core of the coalition's membership comes from the neighbourhood near the plant, but the group isn't focused solely on odour problems.

Spira said the coalition is worried about the costs of opening and operating the wet plant, as well as its impact on the land, air and water quality.

"The more information we seem to be gathering about the composting process at that site, the more we're seeing that it was a bad idea, both environmentally and economically," he said. "And there's got to be a better way to do it."

The city faces eight charges under the Environmental Protection Act over the odours. But the Environment Ministry is also investigating other allegations involving the plant.

Dolly Goyette, Guelph's district manager for the ministry, said investigators are also looking into whether the operations at the plant contaminated a nearby stormwater pond.

She said the allegation was referred to the ministry's investigations and enforcement branch in December 2005. The ministry has two years from the time it becomes aware of an allegation to press charges. Goyette said she couldn't release details about how the allegation arose or anything else about the investigation.

Janet Laird, Guelph's director of environmental services, said the city was unaware of the ministry's investigation but she isn't concerned about the allegation.

Right now, the city is seeking input from the private sector on possible options for composting organic waste effectively and in a manner that would address the province's concerns about odours.

Laird said her aim is to present options for an appropriate technology to council in July.

Goyette said the city doesn't have to wait until the charges against it are resolved before it can rebuild the wet plant. But it must assure the province it can abide by several conditions, which include managing the waste inside the building and mitigating any odours.

Spira said he and his neighbours don't believe the city can do that -- at the facility's current site -- given its proximity to a residential area. He said councillors should be taking a broader look at how organic waste is handled and consider options besides rebuilding the wet plant.

Wettstein, who chairs the city's finance, administration and corporate services committee, said his priority is finding an approach that is either just as good or better than Guelph's three-bag recycling system.

That doesn't necessarily mean he will support rebuilding the wet plant where it is, Wettstein said.

"Whether it is that particular facility or not, I think, is a different question," he said. "We need to look at all the options. . . . We need a fair amount of additional information and research."

Wettstein said if it's demonstrated that the compost facility can be run cost-effectively at its current location without bothering the businesses and residents nearby, he would support it.

"On the other hand, I think we need to be open to really understanding the broader issue, too, and even looking at it on a more regional basis if that's helpful."

Wettstein said he wants to see whether it makes sense to build a bigger facility somewhere else that could draw revenue by accepting waste from other communities.

It also might make sense to find some kind of partnership on waste with another municipality, he said.

David Kennedy, Guelph's director of finance, said it will be council's decision, but there may be an economic case for a larger plant that could handle waste from outside the city.

For now, there are too many unanswered questions to speculate on the future of the wet plant, Wettstein said. Once the city can examine the various composting technologies out there, it will know better how to proceed.

Coun. Christine Billings, who also sat on the previous council, said she would love to see a wide variety of options, but the current council seems focused on one objective.

"The goal is to rebuild, not to look at another site or partner with another city," Billings said.

"Maybe there's a better alternative. But we're not looking at it because it's not the political will to do so. . . . The political will says we must have our own compost facility right there where we have it."

She said the issue has been complicated by a lack of information provided to council about the wet plant from city staff. She said the previous council only found out about the Ministry of the Environment's concerns about the odours in 2005 after being prompted to investigate by residents who live near the plant.

In May 2006, council issued a contract in excess of $14,000 to Zorix Consultants Inc. of Mississauga for a study on improvements to the wet plant's air-management system.

Billings said the report was written but never officially presented to the last council or this one. The Guelph Waste Management Coalition tried to get the report through an access-to-information request but the city denied that request last month.

"I think this council should be fully brought up to speed with all the knowledge and all the information," she said. "If they bring it forward (behind closed doors) in-camera, then what's the issue?"

"It was a peer review of how to proceed with the potential upgrades to the air-management system we had in place at the time," she said. "We're now seeking a new technology and potentially a new air-management system, so I'm not sure it's pertinent at this point."

Billings said she won't support rebuilding the facility at its current site unless the city finds a cost-effective air-management system that will dissipate the fumes. She said she isn't sure such a system exists.

But Farbridge said it should be remembered the old facility used technology that was more than a decade old. Many options have been developed since it opened in early 1996, she said.

But many people in Guelph favour dealing with waste locally and the city has a responsibility to closely examine the current location, which was approved by the province to handle waste, she said.

"There has been an enormous investment in that site," Farbridge said. "I think we owe it to the taxpayers of this community to look at what we can do on that site.

"Our citizens still separate organics out of the waste stream, which has enormous value in itself. We can't turn our backs on the value our citizens have created."

Farbridge said there will be ample opportunity for public input on a solution that fits "economically, environmentally and socially.

"There's lots of other communities out there dealing with their organic waste in a very innovative and successful way," she said. "I have no doubt that Guelph will be able to do the same."

In the meantime, there are many unanswered questions as well as clashing political beliefs on what the answers might be.

Given that, and the gauntlet of provincial approvals the city will need to run to compost waste locally, it's obvious council has a lot to grapple with.

But Wettstein is optimistic. The organic waste matter is a "political football," he said, but that won't cloud the issue for council.

At the end of the day, staff will provide all the relevant information councillors need to make the right call, he said.

"I don't think politics will get in the way," he said. "It might be fun for a while, but I don't think it will get in the way."

May 23 marked one year since Guelph's wet recycling plant stopped accepting your apple cores and banana peels.

April 21, 2006: The city finds out it won't get a $2.5-million federal-provincial grant to help pay for $3.8 million in repairs to the compost plant's decaying roof -- repairs an engineer's report says need to be done by winter if the plant is to remain open. Mayor Kate Quarrie says shutting down the plant indefinitely is a possibility.

May 1, 2006: Council votes unanimously to temporarily close the organic plant as soon as possible. Apart from roof troubles, the city cites factors including that it hadn't received provincial approval for a test air scrubber to reduce odours, and the fact the plant is under investigation by the province after alleged violations to its operating agreement. Council votes to launch a long-term strategic plan for the city's waste management.

Janet Laird, head of the city's environment department, says the plan could take until 2007 to complete.

May 17, 2006: The city says organic waste will be going to landfill. "It will be shipped off-site, probably to a landfill site until we find additional capacity (at an organics facility)," Laird said. "It shouldn't take very long -- probably a handful of weeks." Dean Wyman, the city's manager of solid waste, says until a site is lined up, the city will rely on a garbage-hauling company to get rid of the organics. It's up to the company to decide where to send the waste, Wyman said. "They can't guarantee where it's going to go, but they said they're going to give their best efforts to find an alternate disposal site," Wyman says. It's later revealed the company hauls the organics to landfill all summer.

June 29, 2006: The wet plant finishes processing its last green bag and shutdown is completed soon after.

Aug. 15, 2006: The Ministry of the Environment lays eight charges against the city and two against its former solid waste manager, mostly related to smells that allegedly came from the plant in 2004 and 2005. Under new rules, the city could be fined millions of dollars -- but it's unclear whether those rules apply to the city's situation.

Aug. 16, 2006: Council disagrees on why the plant was shut. Councillor Dan Schnurr says the ministry investigation was a factor in the decision to close the plant. "It had nothing to do with not getting the provincial funding," he says. Mayor Kate Quarrie disagrees. "The reason for closing the plant was the actual structure of the plant, and also some of the conditions with the air quality," she says. "That decision was made when council couldn't get the funding."

Aug. 31, 2006: The city says it will send green bags to Hamilton's new composting plant for four weeks, starting the week of Sept. 11, then to an incinerator in Niagara Falls, N.Y., until a longer-term location is found. Environment director Janet Laird says staff will continue looking for a more suitable venue. "I think it would be preferable if we could deal with it as close to home as possible, preferably within Guelph boundaries, or outside of that, as close to Guelph as possible," she says. She adds it hasn't taken any longer than she expected to find alternative facilities. "Maybe it's later than we hoped, but it's what I envisioned when I said it would take a few weeks."

Sept. 7, 2006: The Hamilton plant tells the city it won't take Guelph's organics. The city doesn't immediately make that public.

Sept. 11, 2006: City announces the Hamilton plant won't take Guelph's organics. City staff say the organics will go to the Niagara Falls incinerator starting almost immediately.

Sept. 22, 2006: City staff say they will issue a request for a company to process the city's green bags. The request is to be issued Nov. 2.

October 2006: City staff say they'll start a waste-management planning process in the fall. They say it will be complete in 2008, not 2007 as was stated when councillors voted in May to launch the process.

Nov. 2, 2006: Guelph issues a request for tenders to find a facility to take Guelph's green bags in the interim, as the city decides how to proceed. The request period closes Nov. 29. The only bid is from a company applying on behalf of the incinerator in Niagara Falls.

Nov. 13, 2006: Municipal election day. Waste has repeatedly been cited as a key issue for voters.

Dec. 6, 2006: A story in the Mercury cites Ministry of the Environment officials saying the city will have to prove the wet plant won't stink before it's allowed to reopen. "They have to show us that odour wouldn't be an issue," says ministry spokesperson John Steele.

budget option to keep Guelph's organic waste going to the incinerator to save money until the time is right to reopen the plant. The option of sending organics to a composter is expected to cost $1.2 million more. "Rather than spending $1.2 million now, I'd rather be using that money to get Guelph's waste facility back on track," she says. Janet Laird says it will take at least 18 months for the composting plant to reopen.

tender to the New York incinerator. The cost will jump by $15 per tonne, from $65 to $80 per tonne. Council hears that will rise to $88 per tonne in 2008 and to $96 per tonne in 2009. David Kennedy, the city's director of finance, warns councillors that if they do not approve the contract, the city would be left without a place to ship its organic waste.

ministry charges over plant odours. As on other dates, the case is not significantly advanced, though what actually happens is not entirely clear. Janet Laird says the discussion is taking place behind closed doors.