A community meeting is scheduled tonight in the Flour Mill to address neighbourhood concerns about nuisance smoke from an outdoor incinerator operating at a former school.
Lorraine Emond, who lives near the site on Perreault Street, said the foul smell has plagued her and her neighbours for the last few years. It would be one thing if they were just burning wood, Emond said, but the smell of what she suspects is burning garbage and rubber forces everyone inside.
"We've had about three years of trouble,” said Emond, who has lived in the area for the last 28 years. “They burn everything. Not just wood ... The whole neighbourhood is complaining."
She said kids who skate on a nearby rink in winter go home reeking of smoke from the incinerator. In summer, she said people can't open their windows or their homes will reek, too.
"It's especially bad at night (when) they like to burn their garbage,” she said. "If you open your windows at night, you wake up coughing ... I have to use my puffers -- everybody is coughing."
When her son visited recently to help with her basement, he was shocked by the bad smell.
“He said, 'How can you guys live here? It stinks,'” she said. “It's burning every day, 24-7. We've asked the city to help us, but they say there's nothing they can do."
Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann, whose ward includes Perreault Street, raised the issue at a community services committee meeting in April.
Landry-Altmann said since the city is looking at changing its open burning bylaw, it may be time for tighter rules for things like the hydronic heater that's operating on Perreault Street.
“We have one in the Flour Mill area – they burn garbage, they burn pallets in an urban setting,” Landry-Altman said. “I would like hydronic heaters looked at as well, because it's causing great discomfort in a neighbourhood that is very densely populated by users who are convinced, let's say, that this is best for them to heat their location.”
The former school is now home to the Abundant Life Healing Centre, a Christian centre run by Pastor Klaus Saari, according to its website. Saari didn't return an email and phone call from Sudbury.com seeking comment.
Greater Sudbury communications officer Shannon Dowling said that while the municipality is responsible for regulating fire safety rules, it's the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change that regulates what can be burnt in an outdoor furnace such as the one on Perreault Street.
In an email, MOECC Senior Environmental Officer Maurice Boyer said the ministry’s role is to “coordinate with the local municipality and if the municipality finds that waste or hazardous waste is being burnt at the site, then the ministry would get involved and take enforcement action.”
He said larger heating units -- 1,500,000 BTUs or more -- require ministry approval, but smaller systems such as residential heating systems used for comfort heating “do not require approval from the ministry.
“Burning requirements are typically dealt with through municipal bylaws and/or fire department requirements for these smaller systems.”
However, even with approved heating systems, only clean wood is allowed to be used, Boyer said in the email. If a municipality find that someone is burning prohibited materials, that's when the MOECC would step in.
Dowling said a “multi-jurisdictional” site visit is planned for Tuesday, including representatives from the city's bylaw, building control and fire departments, MPAC as well as staff from MOECC.
“They'll go there Tuesday to take a look,” Dowling said.
Emond said she's hoping for a big turnout at tonight's meeting to press city and provincial officials to act.
"At first we thought, well, it's a church, we're going to be nice to them,” she said, about when the centre first opened. “But enough is enough. We're fed up with living in a smoke. We can't open our windows, we can't do anything."
The meeting tonight begins at 6:30 at Percy Playground at the corner of Perreault and Percy streets.
