Crematorium passes smell test at council

by Chris Daponte

BRUCEDALE

The proponent of an animal crematorium proposed in the southwest corner of Guelph-Eramosa has suggested resident concerns about emissions from the facility may amount to nothing but hot air.

“There should be no odour and no smoke,” Kyle Crawford said during a public meeting on Monday night.

Crawford, as president of Pets Above Ltd., has applied for site-specific zoning to locate an animal crematorium in an existing building owned by Crawford Transportation on an 8 acre property on Wellington Road 124, about half way between Whitelaw Road and Wellington Road 32.

“The key to odour control is good housekeeping,” Crawford told council.

He added the facility, which will initially include three cremation units with the possibility of expansion, will be “very sanitary” as the machines reach temperatures of 1,800 degrees Celsius and include “dual chamber systems” that eliminate any odour. The facility will also include a $30,000 monitoring unit that will ensure the emissions meet Ministry of the Environment (MOE) standards, he said.

Yet those assurances did little to assuage the concerns of resident Blair Spedaler.

“These are plagues, from the day they start up until the day they fold,” he said of cremation facilities.

Spedaler added he was surprised to learn the facility would cremate horses as well, as he was previously under the impression the proposed facility would handle house pets only.

He, like several other residents among the ten in the gallery for the meeting, wanted to know what kind of hours the crematorium would have.

Crawford replied the facility could run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, Richard Steele, president of H.S. Eckels and Company (the local dealer for Matthews Cremation, which manufactures the cremation units), added the MOE will also have input on facility hours.

Fred Stahlbaum said he is concerned that if there are issues with emissions, area residents like himself will have “nowhere to go” with their concerns.

“It took a long, long time to clean up the odour at Rothsay,” Stahlbaum added.

When another resident brought up the Rothsay facility in Mapleton Township, which processes animal by-products, councillor David Wolk said the comparison is unfair.

“This isn’t even remotely comparable,” Wolk said, noting the Rothsay facility was never a crematorium.

When questioned about noise and traffic, Crawford said those issues should also pose no problems.

The machines are very quiet, he said, and the facility will pick up animals in vans and transport them directly to the facility as needed.

Councillor John Scott reminded residents that people can open businesses in the township as long as they meet local and provincial requirements.

Councillor Doug Breen agreed, noting the MOE is “extremely thorough - to the point of annoyance.”

Council unanimously approved the site specific zoning and capped the  maximum size of the cremation facility to 5,000 square feet.

That figure was a compromise between the township planner’s original suggestion of capping the floor space at 2,400 square feet (as currently proposed) and Crawford’s argument for no limitation at all (to allow for future expansion).

July 27, 2012