The Environment Agency has issued an update after receiving numerous complaints from residents.
Poolsbrook and Duckmanton residents have been forced to endure horrible smell, swarms of flies and clouds of dust in recent days as issues caused by Erin landfill site have reportedly gotten worse.
Many have contacted the Environment Agency to ask the organisation to speak to the site operator Valencia and intervene.
Now the Environment Agency has provided an update, confirming they ‘pressing’ the operator to resolve the issues as soon as possible.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We are pressing the operator to take steps to mitigate recent odour issues at this site.
“The situation is gradually improving and operations on site are now focused solely on resolving this issue.
“Communities should not have to tolerate odours, and we understand the impact this can have.
“We are inspecting the site regularly and if we do not see improvements, we will not hesitate to take enforcement action if required.”
Erin Landfill site operator Valencia have issued an apology to residents and said increased odour was caused by stockpiled waste being exposed before being tipped into a new landfill cell.
A spokesperson for Valencia said: “We would like to apologise for any inconvenience that the landfill odour has caused local residents. In recent days, Valencia has received approval to start operations in a newly engineered landfill cell.
“As part of this, stockpiled waste is being exposed before being tipped into the new cell. The team onsite have responded to the increase in odour by closing the site to waste deliveries, and increasing soil capping to reduce odours.
“We anticipate that all waste will have been tipped, and covered in the coming days, with landfill gas infrastructure then extracting the gas. ”We continue to work in line with the conditions set out within our environmental permit and the Environment Agency are aware of the actions we have taken.”
