The Capital Regional District is warning Mount Work Regional Park users that routine maintenance at the Hartland Landfill residuals treatment plant will generate “intermittent odours” until mid April.
Crews began routine maintenance at the facility on Wednesday, which is expected to be complete on April 17, the district said.
“Facility operators and CRD staff are making every effort to limit the source and impact of the odours and will continue to monitor the odours as work proceeds,” the CRD said in a statement.
People on Willis Point Road may also be affected by odours, the district said.
The $126.8-million facility, completed in 2020, uses micro-organisms in airtight digestion chambers and an industrial dryer to generate biosolids from the capital region’s sewage system.
The resulting biosolid pellets have been accumulating in the landfill at a rate of about 10 tonnes a day after a previous plan to burn the pellets as fuel in a Richmond cement plant largely fell through.
Some biosolids have been sent to a gravel extraction quarry near Cassidy, where biosolids being stored after being mixed with sand.
The facility’s majority owner and operator, Synagro Technologies, is currently facing a civil lawsuit in the U.S. over health issues and animal deaths.
A group of Texas farmers are claiming that their lands have been damaged by fertilizer containing toxic chemicals from biosolids produced by a Synagro plant in Fort Worth.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The CRD says biosolids created by Hartland’s residual treatment facility have not been used for agricultural purposes.
The province requires CRD to a long-term biosolids management plan by June, but it has requested a meeting with Environment Minister George Heyman to discuss an extension on the deadline.
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