Smell training ordered for Park City employees
BY ED COLLINS Special to The News-Sun December 10, 2012 6:58PM
Grocery stores dump food scraps at Nu-Earth Organics in Waukegan which mixes in yard waste and composts the material in covered aerated static piles (background). | Ryan Pagelow~Sun-Times Media
Updated: January 12, 2013 6:06AM
Selected city employees will undergo training to prepare them for monitoring and reporting on noxious odors that have been coming from a nearby Waukegan compost facility the past several months.
The environmental firm of RK & Associates Inc., Warrenville, will train city personnel in identifying and documenting odor levels that have been drifting from an open-air compost plant at 3000 Apple Drive.
Residents from both Waukegan and Park City recently attended a public hearing on the nuisance and suggested several investigative and corrective measures to alleviate the problem over the winter months.
Among them is encouraging the public to document the date, time and location of the odors by completing odor data forms, conducting odor field tests and retaining special legal counsel to press on violations.
Park City Inspector George Torres said that while the compost odors have diminished during the past couple of weeks now that cold weather has arrived, the necessity to continue monitoring the situation is crucial before it flares up again next summer.
The training that will take place over the winter months, will consist of odor sensitivity techniques, accuracy in detecting and identifying various environmental odors, and locating and documenting odor sources for regulatory enforcement.
At the conclusion of the program, the firm will issue odor monitor certificates to each participant and rate their ability to detect and remember odor characteristics and rate their intensity.
