Thank you for your honest feedback. Odor is our number one concern at Dirt Hugger; we are constantly thinking about it and apologize for the disturbance it has caused you. We are taking action now to correct the problem and have now learned that even minor tweaks in the recipe are unacceptable. We want you to enjoy clean air outside your window and enjoyable walks on the river path -we enjoy using it as well.

You are absolutely correct that the odors from our site have been worse lately. There have been two main reason for this: the pond, and our compost recipe. The pond builds up organic matter in the bottom, which creates odor as the weather gets warmer. This year, in addition to getting in the bottom ourselves, we hired a water consultant to help drain and deal with the pond odor. We drained the pond on April 30th which we feel did a lot to mitigate its odors. The issue has been that we originally designed the pond as a storm water catchment pond, which we thought it was. We now realize the pond needs to be more of an active water treatment pond. When the weather dries out this summer we will redesign and reconfigure the pond to create a more long-term solution in order to avoid odors, especially in the spring.

The second main odor generator, and what I think you’re smelling, comes from our compost recipe. Since opening about a year and a half ago we have been blending lots of ground yard debris in with the other high nitrogen feedstocks (i.e. fruit, food, and cherry sludge). This creates a good compost recipe and reduces odors from composting food scraps. About 3-4 weeks ago we lost a main source of woody material, which has made our recipe out of the normal balance. The main result is higher odor. We ground up woody yard debris yesterday and have begun blending it back into the recipe, which should make a marked difference. It will take us about two more weeks to blend the woody material back into the remaining compost, which should help mitigate overall odors. If this is not the case, please let us know. One other recipe factor is that spring brings a lot of grass clippings to our site, which statistically produce the highest odors-higher than food scraps even.

We are thankful to the Port of The Dalles and the entire The Dalles community for supporting our business. We want to show our support in return by being the best neighbors possible. If it could be of any consolation for your discomfort we would be happy to give you compost for your home needs.

Thank you again,
Pierce,

I apologize for the delay in responding- we’ve had some computer issues. Delivery cost to Goldendale is $75/hour, probably at 2.5 hours. We are encouraging “cooperative buying” for Goldendale. Ideally, we’d like to load up a full 20-30 yard dump truck and deliver to a depot where community members could get the compost they need. If you have any ideas on a good depot location, please let us know. It would help amortize the delivery costs for everyone in Goldendale.

Thanks. Pierce

I apologize for the delayed reply- we had some computer issues here. We can deliver to Biggs. A 14 yard load delivered would be $626. Please let us know if you are interested.

Thanks.

Thanks for the question and apologies for the delayed response (I had a full computer meltdown last week and just got it back). The best thing to do is take your yard debris to Hood River Transfer Station. All of the yard debris from their facility comes here for composting. Also, we aren’t able to take residential drop off material at our facility at this time. Waste Connections has the franchise agreement for both Hood River and The Dalles so all residential yard debris needs to go through them. Thanks for checking in.

Pierce

Thanks

John Bright