Warkworth – Bio Balance’s proposal to use a former a cheese factory and its waste lagoon to produce organic fertilizer contains “a lot of unanswered questions,” says John Vangemeren.

“In the design proposal they want to open an organic composting facility. Sounds great on paper. They will accept up to 30 tonnes a day of animal slaughter waste which could include pig manure, animal guts, chicken heads, intestines, and they are going to open compost this.”

Vangemeren asked the president of the company, Don Carr, to elaborate.

“He said in the first phase it would be open air composting and in the second phase they are going to cover it up, using a biofilter and blowing air over it . . . but in order to do that they need hydro which is a long way away from the site they are talking about,” Vangemeren said.

The company proposes to move the composted material from the site south of Warkworth to the former cheese factory building at the north edge of the village where the product will be bagged and shipped. Its marketing and administrative offices will be located there as well.

The company has applied to the Ministry of Environment for a certificate of approval to use the former whey pond on the Second Concession in Percy Ward as a composting site

Carr told him Bio Balance plans to use generators at the property.

“Great for the carbon footprint and the neighbours,” Vangemeren commented.

“Back in the 1960s when they zoned this M4 – which is industrial waste – they usually put it where nobody really cared. By today’s standard however, it is a wetland and if you stand on the sand berm and look down, it’s all wetland – which eventually feeds into Salt Creek,” he said.

Vangemeren, who lives fewer than 800 metres from the proposed site, finds this unacceptable.

“The wetlands and creek feeds off this property,” he said.

“My biggest concern is the fact that this property should never, ever in the first place have been zoned hazardous waste and with today’s standard of protecting our watershed this should be stopped. Nothing should happen there. That land has been untouched for almost 20 years and it should be reverted back into farmland.”

Vangemeren is not the only one who lives close to the site and is worried.

Betsey and Omar Price are adjacent landowners and they spelled out their concerns in a letter to the Ministry of Environment.

Responding to an e-mail from The Community Press, the Prices said they consider the company’s application to be “misleading and that the impact of its development would have far-reaching consequences,” not only for them but also for those who reside “well beyond” their property line.

The Prices fear the composting site will have an impact on the “well-being of the Warkworth community” and its “fragile rejuvenation” as well as “the environment at large.”

Although the couple said Carr has assured adjacent landowners “that the traffic generated by the operation will be minimal,” they point out that the company’s Design and Operations Report “explicitly anticipates that the operation will generate complaints of traffic, as well as litter, dust, odour, noise and birds, during the operation of the composting treatment facilities.”

The couple also note that “the proposed site is approximately a mile and a half due upwind of Main Street, Warkworth. The odour of decaying slaughterhouse remains, the constant noise of diesel generators, the dust and stench of delivery transport trucks will certainly be carried by the prevailing westerlies to disturb most if not all the residents of Warkworth around the clock. The effect would vary with the seasons, with the summertime outdoor season’s impact being presumably the greatest.”

The Prices are calling for rejection of the company’s application, saying the proposed use has “no redeeming features for us, the community of Warkworth, the region of Trent Hills, and the environment of Ontario.”

The company’s application was on council’s agenda for its meeting on Tuesday, after press time.