An Anchorage landscaping company has people holding their noses in the area of Trunk Road and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.
Last week truck after truck hauled in piles of what would politely be called fertilizer on one of the Valley’s most visible potato fields where Evergreen Landscaping & Nursery has a small outlet from its Anchorage store.
“It was really bad last week,” said Morgan MacConaugha, 24, who has the misfortune of working only a few yards from the steaming piles near where she sells lattes from the Krazy Beanz espresso stand.
“It would gag you,” she said Monday afternoon about the stench from the piles. “Customers would roll their windows down, order something and then roll the windows right back up. It’s just rancid.”
She said someone had been out doing some testing, but she didn’t know what they found.
Wally Evans, an environmental programs specialist with the Department of Environmental Conservation, said he had been touch with the people at Evergreen and said they planned to move the manure and grass compost pile Tuesday or Wednesday to another farm in the Valley.
“They were very apologetic,” Evans said. Evergreen was counting on more snow cover and colder weather, “But it’s been cooking pretty good, I guess.”
The complaint to DEC originally went to the department’s spill response team, Evans said. He first learned of the complaint Friday.
Justin Weisz, manager of Three Bears across the highway, said the smell was overwhelming when he got to work about 6:30 a.m. Monday.
“You can smell it at the front of the store,” Weisz said, adding he’s only had a few complaints from customers.
Jerry Kallam lives nearby and said he called the Mat-Su Borough about the reek, but was told there was nothing local government could do about it. A call to the Borough code compliance office referred the complaint to the DEC.
Calls to Evergreen were not immediately returned,
About the only ones pleased with the stench is a conspiracy of ravens that appears to be picking tasty morsels from the reeking heaps.