AUGUSTA — To neighbors, the suggestion stinks.

An odor scientist hired by operators of a controversial paving plant say scents wafting from the plant and into the Grandview neighborhood “would be considered close to neutral on the odor pleasantness scale.”

“This is an insult to us,” neighborhood resident Lou Craig said. “This report says, basically, the odor is so little, we have to look for the odors to be able to detect them.”

Beginning shortly after the plant came along in 2009, Craig and several other neighborhood residents have lodged numerous complaints with the city about the smell of asphalt coming from the R.C. & Sons paving plant off West River Road, which is less than 1,500 feet away from their neighborhood.

“We don’t have to look for them, the odors come to us,” Craig said. “They’re definitely there. We’re not making this up. We’re not hypochondriacs.”

Matthew Manahan, an attorney for McGee Construction — the West Gardiner firm that owns the gravel pit where the R.C. & Sons paving plant is located — urged residents and city councilors at a packed meeting Thursday to focus not on the personal observations of the scientist who did the report, but on his recommendations to quell the smell coming from the plant.

Those are recommendations Manahan said the company is willing to implement immediately.

McGee and R.C. & Sons hired Odor Science and Engineering Inc., of Bloomfield, Conn., to study the odor issue and make recommendations.

Their report, written by Ned Ostojic, was delivered to the city Tuesday and reviewed by councilors Thursday.

“We’re ready to immediately implement (the steps recommended, in the report, to fix the problem) after tonight,” Manahan said. “Dr. Ostojic doesn’t dispute they smell an odor up there on a regular basis. And that’s what this is intended to address.

“I think this report may be sending the wrong message, that it’s not that bad,” he said. “That day that he was here, it wasn’t that bad. But what we want to do is address the odor issues. That’s why we’re here.”

Potential fixes recommended by the report, which Manahan said would be implemented, include building an enclosure around the truck loading area at the pavement plant and inserting an additive during the pavement making process to combat the odor of pavement.

Manahan said Ostojic, who did not attend Thursday’s session, believes his recommended remediation steps will fix the odor issue.

Councilors said the company should have done the testing earlier, so potential fixes could already be under way. They said it will take time to implement the fixes, so much so that they aren’t likely to be in place until September, after the peak paving season when the plant will be less busy and the air will be cooler. They fear that could yield misleading results, compared to implementing the fixes during the peak summer paving season, when residents said the odor is at its worst.

“I have a really serious problem with the timing here,” said Stephen Langsdorf, city attorney, noting it will take time to implement the recommended fixes. “By the time these are implemented and testing can take place, conditions in the neighborhood will be beyond what everyone’s complaining about.”

Manahan said the company waited until July to conduct the testing so the plant would be in full production, and thus be most likely to be creating its strongest odor, for the testing.

Councilors are considering tabled changes to the city’s mineral extraction ordinance to address residents’ concerns about odors, dust and noise coming from the paving plant. The changes as proposed would force the plant to close or move when its license expires next May.

Councilor Cecil Munson, holding up an inch-thick binder of citizen complaints the city has received about the paving plant, said he has visited the neighborhood himself and, when the wind is blowing into the Grandview neighborhood, the odor of asphalt there has been intense. He added that sometimes a haze also settles in the neighborhood.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

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