Seems like a pretty simple fix. Or at least a painfully obvious way to help control odours.
The Natural Resources Conservation Board (NRCB) handed down a compliance directive to Rimrock Cattle Company Ltd. last week, telling operators of the feed lot west of High River to perform semi-annual cleaning of the catch basins, among other measures.
You would think that a feed lot, particularly one upwind from a significant population centre, wouldn’t need to be told to clean its catch basins, that doing so would simply be the neighbourly thing to do, but, alas, a directive was required.
It’s clear from NRCB data that complaints about ‘vomit- and headache-inducing’ odours were significantly lower after the catch basins were cleaned. In the three months after cleaning in late 2022, the NRCB received 111 odour complaints; in the same timeframe a year later, a year in which the catch basins weren’t cleaned, there were 513 odour complaints.
If it wasn’t readily apparent that cleaning would be better odour-wise than not cleaning, the 462 per cent increase in complaints certainly provided a clue.
There’s little doubt that a feed lot, particularly one of that scope, comes with odours, so unpleasant smells, and the corresponding complaints, are to be expected, but when the NRCB has received more than 4,600 of them over the last three years, it screams that action needs to be taken.
Last week’s directive, which has given the operator until May 15 to empty the catch basins, is hopefully the beginning of that action and will come just in time for the arrival of warmer weather, when residents are looking to sit on the patio or crack a second storey window to let in some cool night air, neither of which are possible when that nauseating stench permeates the area.
