Ellsworth is considering legal action against a local composting company that has been cited for three summertime violations — and 64 community complaints — over an unpleasant odor emanating from its property.
Since last spring the city has received a flood of complaints over a foul smell emitting from the grounds of Maine Organics, a local composting firm. After a 2024 consent agreement with Maine Organics proved insufficient, the City Council adopted an odor ordinance in March 2025.
The three notices issued to Maine Organics since July 2025 were violations of that ordinance. The matter has since been forwarded to the city’s legal counsel for further enforcement, according to the city’s code enforcement officer, Robert Grant.
Between May 12, 2025, and Feb. 23 of this year, Grant logged 64 complaints about the smell at the Industrial Road facility. Most were from properties adjacent to the composting firm, but a number of “credible” complaints came from residents who live more than two miles away from Maine Organics, according to the odor complaint log, which was started with the ordinance’s adoption.
The odor ordinance limits commercial and industrial entities from releasing “noxious or offensive odors” that pose health risks or “unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of others’ properties for an unreasonable period of time,” the ordinance says.
Maine Organics uses shellfish waste and wood shavings — among other ingredients — to produce compost later sold to landscaping and construction companies. Parts of the composting process produce malodorous gasses.
Josh Wellman, the company’s owner, did not respond to inquiries from the Bangor Daily News.
Wellman has previously said his company tried to mitigate the smell by tweaking their recipe and shifting to night hours. But the smell remains, according to the complaint log.
Ted Williams, a neighbor of Maine Organics and owner of Williams Irrigation Systems, has long complained about the smell consistently permeating the area since the facility’s opening in 2017, he said. His bookkeeper often leaves the office to escape the odor.
“The smell is like an unkempt rat cage crossed with sewage,” Williams said. “Sometimes it’s so strong it gives you a headache almost immediately when you come in, it’s pretty bad.”
Williams has consulted with real estate agents over the years about selling his properties on Industrial Road, only to hear what he already feared: a property with as bad an odor as his would be difficult to sell.
“We’re encroaching on a decade at this point,” Williams said. “It’s really not acceptable to let it go on that long. I’ve addressed this with three town managers at this point.”
The first of those three violations was given at the beginning of July 2025, after Grant determined the composting facility had violated the odor ordinance by allowing the bad smell to persist for over four days.
The company was ordered to rectify the problem within 30 days and warned that failure to do so could be cause for legal prosecution of a land use violation. In that case, the notice says, Maine Organics would be fined $100 per day for the violation, required to cover the city attorney’s fees and issued a court order to mitigate the smell.
The second violation, dated Aug. 5, came after at least eight separate complaints reached the city, a few of which said the odor had been present for weeks. Grant informed the facility’s operator of the complaints on a Thursday. He returned to the site the following Tuesday to find the odor still lingering.
After issuing that violation, the city continued to receive complaints in the days following, some from more than 2 miles away from Maine Organics’ facility. Grant issued the final violation on Sept. 3.
“There was a smell all along, there was no real abatement of anything,” Grant said. “As far as I’m concerned, they never abated anything, there was no correction of what needed to be fixed at any point.”
The code enforcement officer has only received odor complaints related to Maine Organics and not about any other property in the city, he said.
The adjacent Ellsworth transfer station has long been mistaken by local residents as the source of the lingering smell, Williams said, but he was adamant that it originates from the composting firm, not the city’s waste management facility.
The city manager and deputy city manager did not respond to inquiries from the Bangor Daily News.
