A feisty rural Alberta community was not backing down on their pursuit to shut down a composting facility they say has been a curse.
Many Strathmore residents say the nearby GFL facility has impacted their quality of life, saying it’s been processing hazardous material and has been growing far beyond its footprint.
Sarah McGovern lives nearby and said the smell has been intolerable.
“It’s been absolutely awful. The smell, the health concerns — we have two small children. Our property values have decreased and it’s ruined our life,” McGovern said.
Close to 60 community members packed inside the Wheatland County office on Tuesday with the hope of convincing county officials to shut the facility down. After a passionate presentation by the group ‘Neighbours Against Pollution,’ county officials made a decision to issue a stop-work order at GFL.
They have also ordered a remediation process get underway and stated that nothing else can go into or be removed from the GFL facility until a third-party inspection is conducted.
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Betty Lou Mercer lives beside the GFL facility and said she was encouraged by the development.
Colin Huxted also lives nearby and is the spokesperson for Neighbours Against Pollution.
“We’ve been going at this for years. I’ve experienced problems, threats and bullying, and we are done with it,” Huxted said. “If this doesn’t work for us we are suing our own county we don’t want to do that.”
Longtime Strathmore property owner Dennis Kiemeny said he wants his family protected from harm.
“We’ve run out of time,” he said. “They put you in a corner and you have to strike back until you get results. The goal was to get us out of the corner.”
An environmental consultant will conduct testing and county officials will be monitoring the site 24/7. Global News reached out multiple times to GFL but haven’t received a company response.
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