Battle over odor from landfill in New Jersey - Boston News, Weather, Sports | FOX 25 | MyFoxBoston

Battle over odor from landfill in New Jersey

By MATT ALVAREZ

NEW JERSEY (MYFOXNY) -- Roxbury Township, N.J., residents say the smell coming from a landfill is so bad that they have created bumper stickers to draw attention to their plight.

Jim Stoltz Jr. and his dad say nearly 200 people living in homes near the Fenimore Landfill are fed up with the rotten egg-like stench in their neighborhood.

"People have begun to back out on contracts to purchase homes," Stoltz Jr. said. "I would suspect that a home is barely sellable at the moment."

Debbie O'Brien said she had no idea that the landfill, which was closed 35 years ago, would be purchased and reopened by Strategic Environmental Partners in 2012.

O'Brien said the dump is causing a whole host of quality of life issues.

"We became aware when we smelled the odor in the air and when the trucks came over, our quality of life has diminished ever since," O'Brien said.

So now the homeowners have filed a class-action lawsuit against the current owner of the landfill to shut it down and receive compensation for damages.

But according to an attorney representing Strategic Environmental Partners, the company is working to cap the landfill to take away the current odor.

The company issued this statement: "Strategic has made every effort to control odor emissions from the site but has not received approval from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to apply its odor control product. The expert appointed by the court has confirmed that there is no threat of any health hazard posed by the landfill odors."

A public hearing about the landfill will be held on February 28.