Republic Services announced late Wednesday afternoon that it will halt its compost-gone-bad removal project for the two days.
A spokeswoman for the company said Republic would halt removal of collected raw composting material from its Parr Road site on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Crews will work at the site Saturday on a project, but will not be disturbing the compost.
The suspension should ensure the noxious foul smells that have been flooding Point Richmond won't spoil the holiday, Bielle Moore said.
The company is in the process of removing a large pile of raw compost material on site, digging into mounds and loading it onto trucks to take off site to a Republic-owned landfill.
Over last weekend the company removed the final loads of compost material that the company said it was sure had gone "sour." The material currently being removed - believed to be the source of the past six days of foul odors - was in line to be routinely composted/processed. But the company opted to remove it instead, hoping to avoid further complaints of foul-smelling fumes.
City of Richmond code enforcement officials were scheduled to visit the Republic site Wednesday and review the situation.
Republic expects by early next year to have a new composting system in place that company officials believe will minimize any foul odors drifting to Point Richmond - and other communities around the area.
The company is also scheduled to give the Point Richmond Neighborhood Council an update on its activities at the PRNC meeting Wednesday, Jan. 25.
The PRNC heard a presentation about Republic's continuing noxious smell problems at its December meeting from Joe Doser, a supervising environmental health specialist with Contra Costa County. Doser presented the group with a detailed 13-page official county memo/report about the ongoing problems at Republic.
The PRNC that evening also heard from representatives of Bay Area Air Quality Management and the City of Richmond Code enforcement office about their efforts to deal with the wafting noxious fumes that have prompted hundreds of complaints to the agencies and sparked concerns about the effect the fumes might be having on residents' health.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Contra Costa County's Lori Braunesreither, Department of Health: Lori Braunesreither.
Nicole Ewing, Richmond Code Enforcement (510-621-1591)
Bielle Moore, Republic Services community affairs manager (510-262-7547)
