RESPONSE SUMMARY - Puget Sound Clean Air Agency

RESPONSE SUMMARY
ORIGINAL DRAFT ORDER OF APPROVAL NO. 10052
Comment Period – April 29 - June 15, 2010
Summary Response to Public Comments Received (NOC 10052)
April 29 – June 15, 2010
The Agency has reviewed all the comments received in writing or offered orally at the public
hearing. This review and the nature of the comments led to some recurring themes and messages
which have been identified below. The Agency has used these themes to reply to the comments
in a summary fashion. At the end of this summary, the conclusions and changes related to the
originally proposed order of approval are identified.
1. Odors from the facility are a persistent nuisance
The Agency agrees with this general observation, even though not all of the complaints
received by the Agency have been verified by personnel on the ground or traced to Cedar
Grove. When Agency personnel are able to respond to a complaint of a nuisance odor
that is “in progress”, it has sometimes been possible to verify the impact and determine
that Cedar Grove is the source of the odor. Cedar Grove has indicated it is in compliance
with all site specific order of approval conditions, settlement agreement conditions, and
general Agency regulations when these complaints are received. That observation
combined with the Agency experience in the field would suggest that compliance with
those requirements alone may not be sufficient to prevent the odor nuisance experience in
the community, especially in the last 2-3 years.
2. Odors are an embarrassment to residents during guest visits
The Agency understands this comment and believes it is an extension of the nuisance
issue identified above. The comment supports the idea that observations about the odor
may not be limited to just the most local residents with an awareness of Cedar Grove and
their operations in Maple Valley. These comments also indicate how far odors can be
transported in a recognizable fashion.
3. Odors from the facility negatively impact school operations
The general comment was that the odor impacts negatively affected the school operations
and led to restrictions of activities (i.e. keeps children inside at recess). The Agency
contacted staff at the Maple Hills Elementary School to determine the level of impacts
that may have occurred at that school in relation to the nuisance odors covered by these
comments. What we were able to determine is that the school has experienced the odors
in a similar manner that the residents have identified. Sometimes, the complaints
received by this Agency are from staff at the school. The experience related by the
school is that the odors tend to be strongest in the morning, permeate throughout the
school, and have tended to be most persistent (e.g. every day) in the spring. Parents and
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