Is $1.1 million the price of a stink-free neighbourhood?

Neighbours of a controversial compost giant in south London hope it is after the massive fine was slapped on Orgaworld this week for foul odours over four years.

It’s the latest setback for the company, which was already ordered to cut back on processing two months ago to address its odour problem.

Orgaworld, which operates a facility on Wellington Road south of Highway 401, pleaded guilty Thursday to nine counts of discharging a contaminant — specifically odour — into the environment between 2014 and 2017. The company was hit with a $100,000 fine for each of the nine charges, plus a 25 per cent victim surcharge for a total of $1,125,000.

“The ministry has issued an order to Orgaworld that is currently requiring them to operate at 30 per cent capacity in an effort to reduce odours,” Gary Wheeler, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, wrote in a statement.

Orgaworld general manager Michael Leopold said the restrictions are set to be lifted Nov. 14.

He told The Free Press that odour complaints are hard to measure.

“This is very subjective because it’s odour. What you might like as an odour, I don’t like,” he said.

South London residents aren’t buying it. The ministry has received 1,339 complaints from the community since 2012. This year, the ministry added odour investigations on evenings and weekends.

Allan Tipping, who’s led the neighbours’ fight, said the fine should be much higher —the maximum is $10 million per count.

He wants a total halt on processing. “They need a shutdown that says to them, ‘Wake up. Fix this problem,’ ” he said.

But neighbour John Pieterson, also part of the fight, thinks the fines could signal progress. “The gun has been cocked. The bottom line to a company like this: it’s not much, but it signals such a negative thing. It doesn’t look good.”

Both Tipping and Pieterson hope powerful corporate neighbours — an Ikea and expanded Costco are set open to nearby — may have more sway. “If you think the neighbours can get disgruntled, I would think a nice southerly breeze wafting over Costco and Ikea will raise their ire,” Pieterson said.

Next summer, the city will test a mechanical odour detection device in the area, home to garbage, compost and biogas facilities. Right now, Londoners must report odour complaints to the province. If the sniffer works well, the city could enforce an odour nuisance bylaw.

“We don’t have a lot of jurisdiction. A lot of this is the province. But we have to show the community that we are trying to do something,” said Coun. Harold Usher.

Orgaworld opened its $25-­million plant in 2007. In 2010, it agreed to a temporary shutdown and spent $5 million upgrading the facility to ease odour concerns.

The plant takes in green-bin refuse from Toronto, Vaughan and St. Thomas.

With files from Free Press reporters Jennifer Bieman and Jonathan Sher

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