'We just want the smell to go away': Wixom neighbors battle persistent compost odors

Wixom residents in the Hillsborough subdivision say there's an occasional stench coming from a nearby composting facility.Kathy Gawronski told 7 News Detroit, "I think it was a couple years ago... we noticed kind of walking around this sub that it kind of smells like a dump. Where is that coming from?"7 News Detroit reporter Darren Cunningham has the story in the video below: Neighbors traced the smell to a composting facility located at the Wixom Department of Public Works on Charms Road."We don't want an operation shut down. We just want to have the smell to go away," Gawronski said.Danny Pridmore told 7 News Detroit, "If the wind's blowing from the north, we smell it like crazy.""It's just really bad. It's like, uh, almost wanna say a dead animal or something. It's so bad," he described.Spurt Industries performs the composting. The company contracts with the city of Wixom to haul in waste, including yard waste and food scraps, to recycle.Gawronski said, "In our opinion, I don't think our city has enough oversight of what's going into that property.""We've put calls into the operation, so they can log our complaints. We've been told to do that. We've been told to log service requests with the city. So, we've done tons of that. Which some have been followed up, some haven't. We've come to council meetings," she explained.At a Wixom City Council meeting in November 2024, Bill Whitley, the owner of Spurt Industries addressed the problem.He said the food waste coming from Ann Arbor is not to blame as residents believe.Whitley told city council members, "The creation of the odors came from this increase in yard waste volume."He explained, "Our outgoing volumes continue to rise year on year. That gives us the space to manage the materials in a more responsible way moving forward."Gawronski told 7 News Detroit, "To their credit, they've gone into detail about what it takes to manage an operation like this. How they have to control the input and the recipe, but the problem is we don't have that kind of control that we need to prevent the stench."She said, "It really is a quality of life thing. You wanna be able to come outside. We're outdoors people . You wanna be able to walk around and not have to worry about what is that smell?"7 News Detroit spoke with city manager Steven Brown who acknowledged past odor complaints but said he hadn't heard of any concerns recently.7 News Detroit also reached out to Spurt Industries. In a statement, company owner Bill Whitley said: