For years, Westbrook residents dealt with the smell coming from the paper mill, which went away when the mill downsized. Starting last weekend, an odor blanketed Westbrook once again, but this time, the mill wasn’t to blame. It was the smell of fertilizer coming from a local farm.
The odor originated from the 155, newly fertilized acres belonging to the Randall Farm, off Stroudwater Street. Residents complained about the powerful smell, but Lew Randall, 86, owner of the farm, said he is just doing what he’s always done.
According to Randall, the only difference this year was his choice of fertilizer – chicken manure, or “hen dressing,” instead of sludge – that he spread on his fields Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Randall said he’s used sludge, which is processed human waste, for the last 14 years. He prefers it to hen dressing, because it doesn’t smell as bad and it’s actually better for the land. But he was unable to get sludge this year and had to use hen dressing.
Randall said the odor is merely a part of farming, which, he said, is vital to the economy, and something people don’t appreciate anymore because they get all their food from the store. Also, chicken manure uses the waste instead of putting it into a landfill.
“In my way of thinking, it’s better to utilize this stuff on the land instead of stockpiling it up somewhere,” he said.
People pointed to the weather as exacerbating the odor problem this year. According to Todd Gutner, a meteorologist with WCSH Channel 6, a stable, warm-air mass hovering over cool air trapped the smell over the weekend. “And there was not much wind to clean the air out,” he said.
On Monday, a light breeze from the west pushed the odor into Portland, as well, though by the afternoon, a sea breeze moved it out, he said.
“It’s nothing new, but this year is the worst,” said Westbrook resident Jennifer Dorr, who lives off Saco Street. “We had a cookout this weekend but couldn’t eat outside it was so bad.”
Dorr, who has lived in Westbrook for 11 years, said the smell is usually limited to Stroudwater Street and areas toward Brighton Avenue, but this year it was everywhere.
“Usually it just comes and goes, and you can’t usually smell it all around the city like this,” she said, who added she doesn’t usually smell it at her house.
Melissa Dadiego, who lives off Brighton Avenue over the Portland line, said she could smell it clearly at her home. “It’s disgusting at my house,” said Dadiego. “I was checking the dog and everything.”
The smell even spread to the northern part of the city as far as Prides Corner. Donna Soares, an Austin Street resident, said she could smell it as soon as she stepped out of the house Monday morning.
“I opened the door this morning and I thought a dog went to the bathroom on my lawn right there,” said Soares. “I was coming out of my house checking my shoes.”
Helyne May of Windham said she couldn’t smell the fertilizer in Windham, but smelled it as soon as she came across the Westbrook city line on Monday. “I had the stench in my car pretty much since the Westbrook line,” she said.
According to police, dispatch received steady phone calls about the smell over the weekend and Monday.
Police declined to answer questions about the smell, instead advising residents to contact Mayor Bruce Chuluda to complain. Meanwhile, the administration said its hands are tied because the Randalls got permission from the state and not the city to fertilize.
“As we understand it, he’s fully within his right to do what he’s doing,” said City Administrator Jerre Bryant. The Randalls get a general farm management plan approved by the state and aren’t required to get additional permits to fertilize, added Bryant.
“We have absolutely no responsibility here at all,” said Assistant Code Enforcement Officer Diana Brown.
Bryant said state law defends farmers’ rights to fertilize, which may have smell as a consequence. “If odor of manure was a nuisance, no one could farm,” said Bryant. “The state speaks to that quite specifically.”
Instead, what the city intends to do is meet with Randall and try to figure out a plan that could lessen the smell in coming years. Bryant was clear to say the city couldn’t force Randall’s hand, and that any compromise by Randall would be voluntary. But he said the city would try.
As far as Randall is concerned, however, there’s not much he can do. “I can’t control the weather,” he said.
Randall said he would probably stand firm with the city because he’s perfectly within his legal rights to fertilize, and it’s vital to keeping his fields green for the 300 or so cattle he raises for beef. He said he’d prefer going back to sludge, but he lost the contract with his South Portland supplier and doesn’t know where else he can get a quality product. He’s tried sludge from a Westbrook supplier, but that sludge had too much water in it and smelled just like the hen dressing.
Randall said this isn’t the first time he’s had to deal with Westbrook residents complaining about the smell. He views it simply as the encroachment of development onto what was once mostly farmland.
When he was a kid, he said, Westbrook had 26 working farms. Now it has only two. Development brings the city more money from taxes, and while people need food, they don’t want to be near farms, he said. Also, people want to see farmers growing organically, but organic farming is smellier than chemical farming, which Randall is adamantly against because it’s less healthy for the land and the people eating his beef.
In any case, Randall isn’t about to give up farming. He’s done it with his twin brother, Linwood, for most of his 86 years. And he said it’s a healthy way of life, one that he always wanted to do and has kept him alive when others his age have passed on.
“Working every day. That’s what farming did for me,” he said. “Most of the other kids are dead.”
As for the smell, Randall said the expected rain this week would put an immediate end to it. At least until next year.
It stinks! Organic farm’s fertilizer gags city folks
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