Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring and Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. stepped up to the podium together on April 20 to read from the letter they’d submitted to Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson and his City Council.

In their letter, Nehring and Sheldon reiterated the concerns their citizens have expressed about the regional yard and food waste processing at the Cedar Grove composting facility located on Smith Island, within the Everett city limits, and asked that the Mayor and City Council of Everett do what they could to ensure that Cedar Grove complies with regulations designed to limit environmental impacts of its operations on surrounding areas.

Nehring also voiced concerns that an increase in waste processing at Cedar Grove’s Smith Island facility could likewise significantly impact the surrounding environment. As such, he and Sheldon jointly requested in their letter that the city of Everett conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement, under the state’s Environmental Policy Act, on the permit application Cedar Grove has submitted for its Smith Island facility.

“Besides a number of listed endangered species in the adjacent ecosystem, there are additional concerns about wetland mitigation, habitat restoration, traffic and transportation impacts, overall footprint, water quality, air quality and widespread odor problems associated with Cedar Grove’s Smith lsland facility,” Nehring read from the letter. “As you know, both the city of Marysville and the Tulalip Tribes have become parties of record to Cedar Grove’s permit application. As deeply interested parties, we are requesting a substantial and thorough review of the environmental issues through a formal ElS.”

Marysville resident Mike Davis, founder of Citizens for a Smell Free Snohomish County, followed Nehring and Sheldon by handing the Everett City Council a petition with more than 1,200 signatures from residents of Marysville, Everett and Lake Stevens, which were collected during a span of three weeks by no more than three volunteers. Davis and his fellow citizens believe that Cedar Grove’s Smith Island facility is the source of the smell, and their petition calls for “the company and the regulators who oversee them to stop the stench.”

“I want to make it clear that we absolutely support the mission of recycling organic materials into compost,” Davis said. “But it needs to be done responsibly, and to truly mitigate the serious and unpleasant impacts to area residents.”

Davis pointed to 13 notices of violation and $169,000 in fines from the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency that Cedar Grove is disputing, after the agency received 457 odor complaints about Cedar Grove’s Smith Island facility during July and August of last year. He likewise dismissed Cedar Grove’s claims that they were the source of none of these odors as “defying all reasonable credibility.”

“If Cedar Grove wants to live up to its constant self-promotion as an environmental leader, then it needs to operate responsibly and do the right thing by fixing this odor problem for good,” Davis said. “Until they do, we don’t think they should be seeking an expansion from the city of Everett, or that the city should grant one.”

Laird Harris, of Harris & Smith Public Affairs, issued a statement on behalf of Cedar Grove the next day, deeming an EIS “clearly unnecessary,” since its proposal for an anaerobic digester at its Smith Island facility would not change its permitted capacity and, according to Harris, would also reduce potential odor-related impacts. He likewise described Cedar Grove’s proposed wetland mitigation for its Smith Island facility as being based on and fully compliant with longstanding plans and policies for restoring salmon habitat in the estuary.

“Cedar Grove has conducted extensive odor monitoring in the area since last summer and uses this information in its continuing efforts to improve its own odor management systems,” Harris said. “During the course of this monitoring, the company has identified more than 20 other odor sources in the area and shared this information with officials. Cedar Grove has offered to other businesses and local governments to address odor issues on an area-wide basis.”