Morinville residents will have to hold their noses until November before they will be rid of that dog food smell, says the president of Champion Petfoods.
Town council received a briefing from Champion staff this month on the ongoing struggle to control smells from the company's plant. The Morinville plant produces both dry dog food and a pungent, greasy odour that blankets the town on certain days.
The town asked the plant to deal with the smell around 2009, says Champion president Frank Burdzy, which it tried to do through installing a $500,000 plasma injection system. When the smell persisted, it drew up plans to add new scrubbers to the plant that were supposed to be operational by July.
But a review of those plans by one of Europe's top odour-control consultants determined that the scrubbers alone would not stop the smells, he says. The consultant called for additional tweaks to the factory's production process and layout that would take several months to complete.
The company now expects the scrubbers and smell-control measures to be ready by November, Burdzy says.
"It's certainly taking much longer than I'd have contemplated," he says.
How to lower a stink
Champion Petfoods has operated in Morinville since 1996. Complaints about its smell started wafting in about four years ago when the plant changed its production formula to add more meat to its product.
The effect was similar to that of throwing more steaks on the barbecue, Burdzy says: more odours. The plasma injector system was supposed to incinerate any smell particles, but only got the dry ones — oily wet ones got past it and out the smokestacks.
A consultant with Denmark's Buro Blauw Environmental Engineering Consultants took a look at the plant and made three recommendations, Burdzy says, the first two of which are now in progress. First, the company has to cook its food at a lower temperature, as more heat means more odour. Second, it has to rearrange its plant interior and tweak its exhaust stacks to improve airflow. Once it does that, it will be able to calculate the size of scrubbers it needs and install them.
Those Venturi scrubbers work by blasting a cyclone of air with water, Burdzy says, causing any wet smell particles to fall out into a collector. "It's almost like the interior of a vacuum cleaner." The remaining dry smell particles should be eliminated by the plasma system.
The changes should cost about $1 million, Burdzy says. "We really want to make this situation go away," he says, but they also want to make sure this solution actually works. "I would ask for some patience."
Disappointed, but resigned
Mayor Lloyd Bertschi says he's disappointed by the delay. "We'd really hoped to get that issue dealt with," he says. "They made the commitment that [it would happen by] the end of August, and now it's November."
The town is in a tough spot with Champion, says Coun. Gordon Boddez, as the company is both a major employer and a major polluter, at least in terms of smell.
"It's a major issue in the community. People are calling and saying they want something done," Boddez says.
Still, he says he's convinced the company is working on a solution, and was willing to give them time to find one.
Council will tour the plant next week, Bertschi says, and will get a formal update on the smell problem at its Sept. 13 meeting.
"The patience is starting to wear a little bit thin, but I guess there's not much we can do about it."
Questions on the smell issue should go to 1-855-784-0340.
