London city hall hopes odour fines will pass the sniff test

London is moving closer to cracking down on companies responsible for foul smells in the city.

The community and protective services committee has recommended toughening up London’s nuisance bylaw to include odours from garbage composting and meat rendering companies.

Offenders would receive a fine of up to $50,000 per day for the first offence plus a special fine of $50,000. A second offence would set the daily maximum fine double to $100,000 plus a maximum special fine of $100,000.

London city hall will use a field olfactometer for odour detection. The device is used to measure and quantify odour strength in the surrounding ambient air.

City staff will set a standard operating procedure for random odour monitoring, scheduled monitoring and monitoring in response to citizen complaints. Random testing will include taking odour readings in the area of municipal facilities, such as the Dingman Pumping station and the city landfill site.

However, city facilities will be exempt from municipal enforcement.

Adding odours to London’s nuisance bylaw is largely a response to concerns residents in south London have had with Orgaworld, a composting facility and StormFisher Environmental, a biogas company.

StormFisher, located at 1087 Green Valley Road, has taken issue with the proposed bylaw changes. In a letter to the city committee StormFisher said overlapped with theirs and that of the ministry of the environment and climate change to deal with the issues and said it was unfair municipal facilities were exempt.

A public participation meeting will be held to address the proposed changes Apr. 4, 2018.