For weeks, residents of the Cheam reserve near Chilliwack noticed a terrible smell.

The source was revealed in December, when officers from Environment Canada discovered piles of material on a site near the Fraser River. Officers notified Cheam First Nation, which determined the land had been leased by the owner to a waste management company that has run afoul of provincial environment laws in the past.

The discovery, on land not under typical provincial jurisdiction, shines a light on the difficulties tracking waste from its origin to its end point in B.C. — and differentiating between waste, compost and soil.

In a statement, Cheam First Nation said it was saddened by the recent discovery of the “questionable composting facility” on its land. “While working so hard to protect the waters and land around our traditional territory, this encounter happened so close to home.”

But Fraser Valley Renewables, the waste management company responsible for the facility, disputes that it was used for composting, characterizing it simply as a “soil storage facility”. The soil is the end product of a process that involves composting, but it is no longer compost, or waste, said Josh Jantzi, legal counsel for Fraser Valley Renewables. The soil was transported to the site to be stored before being sold to end users, often for agricultural purposes. There are about 7,000 tonnes, or 280 truckloads of 25 tonnes each, currently at the site.

Cheam First Nation said that description doesn’t fit with what its team observed when they inspected the facility with federal officials in December. In its statement, Cheam said the material dumped on the land appeared to be “overs,” which generally means large pieces of waste material such as plastic or wood that hasn’t been fully composted. Testing done by Environment Canada “revealed that the leachate from the composting piles is considered acutely lethal to fish,” said the statement.

Environment Canada confirmed officials visited the site on Dec. 6 to ensure the federal fisheries act was being followed, but as the file remained active, could not comment on the investigation.

Jantzi said Fraser Valley Renewables has done its own testing of the soil to confirm it meets the definition of clean fill, not compost or waste, which are governed by different regulations on leachate. It does not contain overs.

He said there may have been pools of water on the site caused by runoff after rain, but as far as he is aware, there are no waterways on the land.

“Any nutrient-dense soil has the potential to result in a leachate that (can) conceivably be a concern for aquatic life, as do the silage, manures, and other fertilizers which are commonly relied on and applied by farms for appropriate farm uses,” he wrote in an email in response to followup questions from Postmedia. “At the Cheam Nation site, the company is making best efforts to protect against any such liquids — even if not harmful — from entering fish bearing streams. Such leachate, if present at the site, does not come from contaminated soil.”

Cheam Coun. Michael Victor said the site is close, but not adjacent, to the Fraser River.

“Our lands teams is concerned and neighbours are concerned because you can smell it,” he said. “We don’t have a whole lot of laws, but this is against the soil and land laws that we do have in place.”

Victor said the nation has been moving ahead on regenerative agriculture strategy to grow food for the community.

“This seems to counteract a lot of what we’re working toward.”

In its statement, Cheam First Nation said the land was leased to Fraser Valley Renewables by the person who holds the certificate of possession for the site, which is on the Cheam reserve near Chilliwack’s eastern border.

The operation infringes on several Cheam laws by operating without authorization and transporting soil without documentation showing each load was assessed by an engineer to meet environmental standards.

Jantzi said the company contends it had permission to operate a soil storage facility, and testing was done to show the soil was not contaminated. No composting has ever been done at the site. He said the lease term has expired, but continues on a month-to-month basis until all the stored soil is removed.

Fraser Valley Renewables has been ordered to cease discharging waste, address the impact on the environment and prevent further discharge, according to the statement from Cheam First Nation. The person who holds the certificate of possession for the land is also expected to provide and follow through with a remediation plan.

Fraser Valley Renewables recently finished cleaning up a farmer’s field in Columbia Valley near Cultus Lake after the company was fined for dumping almost 550 truckloads of compost-like material containing plastic and other waste over several months in 2022. After involvement by both the provincial environment ministry and farmland commission that resulted in a remediation order, the company removed the waste to an undisclosed location last year.

The Ministry of Environment has also assessed an $8,000 penalty against Fraser Valley Renewables, which is owned or operated by Matthew Malkin, according to documents. Malkin and another company he owns, Fraser Valley Agri-Waste Solutions, are facing a second penalty for introducing waste into the environment at different compost site in Abbotsford, according to a penalty referral notice posted by the ministry in December.

The notice claims Malkin has been accepting waste at a site on Huntingdon Road in Abbotsford from another site he owns or is involved in as part of his waste management business, which includes four compost facilities in Abbotsford, one in Langley, a former mine site near Peachland and the farmer’s field near Cultus Lake. The notice does not mention the site on Cheam land.

The notice documents seven times that Malkin was allegedly informed that some of the material he was handling at some of his sites, including “overs,” is classified as waste under B.C. law, and the liquid seeping out of the piles cannot be released into the environment.

“Fraser Valley Renewables and Mr. Malkin were informed that “’in-process” compost is considered a waste until such time that it meets the requirements of (provincial composting regulations),” said a warning given to the company in October 2022 about the dump site near Cultus Lake.

Another warning, and the same information about the material’s designation as waste, not compost, was given six more times over the following months in regards to various compost facilities and sites involved with the company, according to the notice.

Jantzi said the company is in discussions with the B.C. environment ministry about the proposed penalty assessment and did not want to comment during that process.