Talk about distortion

Some people in the North Everett/Marysville area recently found a postcard in their mailboxes that was obviously composed by a Seattle public relations firm that was unconcerned with the facts. 

Here are some important things to think about:

·      Although hundreds of complaints of odors from Cedar Grove have been made to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, the company's Everett location was cited for odors for two days, one in 2009 and the other in 2010.  Cedar Grove has not received a notice of permit violation for odors for more than a year.

·      For one month last summer the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency intensified its enforcement effort in the area around Cedar Grove’s plant.  In the period of this intensified effort, the Agency received 168 Cedar Grove odor complaints and investigated 103 of them.  The agency did not issue a single citation.

·      Cedar Grove is the only generator in the area that has agreed in writing to a third party expert study to determine where odors originate.  This study can answer once and for all where unpleasant odors originate.

·      Cedar Grove has proposed an enclosed facility for anaerobic digestion of organic waste that will operate within the current permitted capacity for the site.  This digester will not only produce green energy, it will be entirely enclosed.  Yet this project is opposed by people who claim to want Cedar Grove to reduce odors.

·      Residents are encouraged not to call Cedar Grove’s odor monitoring firm which now provides real time information that allows the company to make immediate adjustments when odor events are detected.  Instead, they urge residents only to call the Clean Air Agency which can take longer for the resident to receive a follow up.  Cedar Grove asks residents call its contractor so an immediate evaluation can be made.  Cedar Grove has never discouraged calls to the agency. 

What’s going on here?  Maybe it’s time to ask who is paying for this assault on Cedar Grove, how much are they spending and what are their motives?

Cedar Grove Supports The Marysville Community

Cedar Grove would like the opportunity to directly address some concerns that were raised both in the Monday meeting in Marysville as well as in the press. For starters - many of our plant workers and operations team live and work in Marysville. The community of Marysville is extremely important to us. We care what you think and appreciate your feedback!

Please consider the following:

1. Cedar Grove has and will continue to take responsibility for its odor management activities. Odor control is one of the most important elements of successful, large scale composting operations and we have spent millions of dollars to continuously improve our systems to the point that they are recognized as truly state of the art. We will continue to invest when new technology becomes available and is proven to improve odor control.

2. We can be our most effective at this if we focus our resources and energies in areas related to our specific plant operations. This means accurate identification of odor sources and characteristics. As long-term Marysville and Everett residents know, odors were present in the area before Cedar Grove arrived. As many of them have commented in response to local news stories, they also know that other sources of odor including a large topsoil plant, a tannery, a municipal sewage plant and other potential odor sources are located on or near Smith Island. When odors from these facilities are mistaken for our operations, we cannot do anything to stop them and this leads to increased frustration all around. We want to work with you so that all potential odor sources, including Cedar Grove, are addressed in odor control efforts.

3. The press has speculated that increasing the amount of food waste in the composting process has resulted in increased odors. There is no evidence to support this. The odor citations we are reviewing relate to finished compost, not the objectionable odor of decomposing organics that some people have described. Finished compost smells the same whether or not food waste is mixed with other organics.

4. Food waste is not a new feedstock at Cedar Grove, and our technology for processing food waste successfully without adding odors has been in place since the plant opened in 2004. Facility upgrades made in Everett in 2008 enclose virtually all the food mixing and offload activities. Although food waste has increased as a feedstock over time at Everett, it is still a minor percentage of the inbound material we process. A majority of our compost material is still green waste, wood waste, and garden and yard clippings. We have given many public tours at our site, and hear repeated comments on how impressed our visitors are with our success in managing odors.

5. We continue to work with the Clean Air Agency to operate our facility in accordance with their directives on odor control.

We welcome the opportunity to demonstrate our odor control systems to you on a tour of our facility. Please contact megane@cgcompost.com and sign up to join a tour. Also -we'd like to offer the services of our independent odor specialist so that you can participate with us in tracking odors to their sources.

As we move forward, please feel free to contact us about any odor complaints you may have. The sooner we know about problems, the sooner we can correct them if they come from our operations.

For Marysville and Everett residents: please come visit us!

We want to you to know that we are accessible to you and are inviting you to visit members of your Leadership Team for a private visit of our site and operations. We are offering you the opportunity to:

-Review our hours of operation, permit requirements, inbound load and processing procedures site layout, and compost technology.

- Come and see what your inbound loads look like on a typical day ( you might be surprised)!

-See our odor management technology and practices related to:

Receiving

Mixing

Active composting

-Magnetic metal retrieval, finished product applications

-Look at, touch, smell and feel samples of our finished compost.

-Free bags of compost, potting soil or topsoil to try in your yard.

-Compostablity testing.

Sign ups are on a first come first serve basis. Tour times run on weekdays at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., and we will confirm dates and time slots. Space is limited to 10 per tour group, so invite your friends and neighbors if you'd like. If you need other times and days, we will do our best to meet your needs. To get on the tour list, please e-mail: megane@cgcompost.com. She will get back to you with date and time.