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By Steve Lord
Aurora Beacon-News
Published: Jul 25, 2023 at 3:08 pm
State and city officials are continuing their look at the Hello Fresh site on Aurora’s far West Side.
Meanwhile, residents near the facility at Indian Trail and Orchard Road continue to say the operations there make life intolerable for them.
“The smell is unbearable,” said Sandra Orozco, a resident of the Greenfield subdivision next door to Hello Fresh. “But it’s more than just an awful smell.”
She said noise that is sometimes so loud it vibrates her windows has given her migraines, and nausea. It has affected her and her children, she said.
“We’re doing everything we can, but we shouldn’t have to think about sealing our windows just to live comfortably in our houses,” Orozco said. “We need your help; we need Hello Fresh to act responsibly.”
Acting responsibly is what Hello Fresh officials have said they are trying to do. Back in April, officials from Factor 75, which is owned by Hello Fresh, a ready-made food company, said it is spending at least $1 million on adjustments to its facility.
In April, company officials said studies showed that in some cases, the facility is not causing the noise, vibrations, lights, air quality issues and aromas that residents have complained about.
But company officials did say that diesel trucks idling at the back of the facility produced “sporadic occurrences at perceptible levels,” having an affect on the noise and vibrations people have complained about.
Officials said the company stopped trucks idling in the back. But the problems in the neighborhood have persisted, people said.
Nate Pichler, a 5th Ward resident, said calibrated sensors provided by the Environmental Protection Agency have shown high levels of air pollution caused by diesel fumes in homes near the plant. Some homes further away have shown lower levels, although even they have spikes at times, he said.
“I don’t want you guys to forget this is going on,” Pichler told Aurora City Council members. “We will keep fighting to make sure something gets done about it.”
Some of the more than $1 million in changes to the facility have been done, but some have yet to be taken care of, company officials said.
A spokesman for Hello Fresh said this week that a sound barrier wall between the facility and the subdivision will be built next week. Company officials said in April they would build the fence, but had to order it. The spokesman also said “aroma mitigation units” would be installed, and concrete work done, within the next several months.
On May 15, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency issued a violation notice to Hello Fresh for the Aurora facility. The violation notice says largely that the company might not have obtained proper permits necessary before it built the natural gas-fired ovens it uses at the facility.
While it does not deal directly with claims of air and noise pollution, it does say the company might not have submitted complete and accurate annual emissions report to the Illinois EPA.
The IEPA did recommend the company submit records of construction and operations of the ovens, and submit “potential and actual emissions for each criteria pollutant, including hazardous air pollutants, for each emission unit, along with supporting documentation and calculations, for each year of operation.”
It is unclear if Hello Fresh has yet taken those steps.
Factor 75 came to Aurora in 2020, occupying a building that was originally a Lowe’s and then Cosmopolitan Market. Factor 75 was purchased by Hello Fresh shortly afterward.
To allow Factor 75 to locate in the building, which was empty at the time, the City Council had to approve a zoning change for the property.
City officials have said this week they first fielded complaints about Hello Fresh in May 2021, and have had meetings with neighbors and company officials since then.
But whatever has been done so far is not working, according to Bob Meeker, who said he bought his home in the Greenfield subdivision 17 years ago, and enjoyed it until the Hello Fresh facility moved in.
“Now we have to live with the stink, with the dangerous headaches, upset stomach and dizziness,” he said. “The city has allowed our neighborhood to become a dangerous dumping ground for air and noise pollution.”