By Forrest Adams

An environmentally friendly composting site that was the focus of neighborhood odor complaints last spring and summer now sits mostly empty.

Gone from the 5 acres on University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum property are piles of decomposing food waste and grass clippings that many residents said attracted flies and gnats. Absent are the tractors turning the compost over and stirring up the material, which residents say created dust and foul odors.

The site was mostly cleared out on March 31, but not before one last round of odors.

Amy Siefker, a resident of the neighborhood across Highway 5, wrote an e-mail message on Tuesday, March 30: “It’s still very smelly, worse than ever from where my house sits. I have to cover my nose with my sweatshirt on windy days.”

Valerie Hudy, whose home overlooks the site, described the aromas coming up the hill as “ripe.”

“I’m so glad it’s gone,” she said during an interview. “It was unbearable. You couldn’t go outside in early March.”

Peter Moe, director of operations at the Arboretum, said last week he was sorry for the stink and explained that it came from tractors stirring up the material in the process of loading it up to export to Anoka County.

In Anoka County, Minnesota Department of Transportation road construction crews used the 6,800 yards of compost for soil corrections in a Highway 610 reconstruction project.

By sundown the day after Siefker’s complaint, most of the compost was gone from Chanhassen. The tone of messages to Moe’s inbox changed dramatically.

Hudy sent a note of thanks to Moe immediately on April 1.

“Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!! I can’t even begin to tell you all how nice it is to look out the windows and not see the front loaders and piles of compost. I was able to open windows today and the boys enjoyed playing outside once again,” she said.

It was no joke. Terrance Johnson, another resident, sent an enthusiastic note of his own.

“Peter,” he began. “You are man of your word. I must tell you it smelled so bad the last three days in our neighborhood that I was on the verge of calling and asking what the issue was. Thanks again and best wishes.”

Moe said the material is now stored in an enclosed trailer before it is driven to a transfer station in Shakopee on its way to an organics composting facility in Dakota County. He added the Arboretum and Carver County have already applied for a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency grant and permit to continue composting yard waste and organics. He thinks organics composting will still be part of the operations at the Arboretum, just on a smaller scale, farther away from people, and mixed in with more grass clippings.

“There are lots of people who want to do the organics composting. It’s really a problem that nobody wants a composting site in their neighborhood,” he said. “We learned a lot from that experience. We just had too much food waste and not enough yard waste. We need to have a smaller operation and keep it better aerated and farther away from residential neighborhoods.”

Timeline

Spring 2007: Yard waste and organics composting at University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum begins.

Spring 2008: Program expands in Carver County from 124 to 326 tons of organic material.

Spring 2009: Food waste accepted from Minneapolis public schools.

Early summer 2009: Local residents complain about deteriorating air quality in their yards.

August 2009: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency mandates future site downsizing.

August 2009: Arboretum announces site to be closed in 2010.

March 31, 2010: Site closure.