Middleborough · Board of Health · 88 River Street

After years of complaints, a court injunction and repeated state action, the town has ordered A Plus Waste & Recycling to stop composting on River Street and to remove its piles. Neighbors say it took far too long.

By John Barrella – The G.O.A.T. News

MIDDLEBOROUGH — The Town of Middleborough has ordered the composting operation at 88 River Street to shut down, citing what it calls an “overpowering” odor that has driven a stream of complaints from the neighborhood around it.

In a cease-and-desist order dated Nov. 3, Health Officer Eric Badger, acting as the authorized agent of the Board of Health, which in Middleborough is the Select Board, directed Ronald C. High Jr. and A Plus Waste & Recycling Services, LLC to stop “all composting operations on the property and everything incidental or related thereto” until the board says otherwise. The order gives the company 24 hours to stop accepting deliveries of organic material and seven days to remove all existing compost piles and organic waste from the site.

The order also directs High to appear before the Board of Health on Monday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m. in the Select Board meeting room at Town Hall, for a hearing on why the board should not permanently prohibit composting at the property. And it puts the company on notice that the board intends to go to Superior Court for an injunction under G.L. c. 214, § 7A, and to seek contempt if one is violated.

A constable’s return of service shows the order moved fast. Karen A. Blair & Associates received it at 3:21 p.m. on Nov. 3 and left it at the River Street property 31 minutes later, at 3:52 p.m., with a copy also sent by first-class mail.

‘About 500 emails’

For the people who live in the vicinity, the order is overdue. Jaime Meserve, whose property sits directly across River Street from the site, said she and several neighbors have dealt with the smell for years. She estimated that residents sent “about 500 emails” to the town. Meserve said former Select Board Chair Mark Germain ignored requests from her and her neighbors to act.

The complaints are not new. In 2016, Meserve told WBZ-TV that the odor had made her sick on her own front lawn. This summer she laid out the site’s history in a letter The G.O.A.T. published, arguing that the town had let the conditions of the original special permit go unenforced.

The town’s own order describes the same thing neighbors have been describing. It says the Board of Health “has been inundated with complaints” from area residents, who report odors “in their yards and inside their homes,” and it calls the odor “a nuisance and cause of sickness within the Town.”

When The G.O.A.T. visited River Street on Nov. 5, the smell carried well beyond the property line. It was sour and heavy, like a dumpster in July. Solid waste was visible on the street.

A court already ruled on the smell

The order leans on a ruling that has stood for more than four years. In a case brought by neighbors, Richard Medeiros et al. v. A Plus Waste & Recycling Services, LLC, a Plymouth Superior Court judge found that the facility “creates a noxious odor” that unreasonably interferes with neighbors’ use of their homes, and that the odor violated the state’s air pollution regulation, 310 CMR 7.09. The judge’s Aug. 22, 2022 injunction barred the company from operating a composting facility at 88 River Street “until such time as the facility is capable of functioning without emitting nuisance odors.” The Appeals Court affirmed the injunction on Oct. 3, 2024.

The court record also cuts the other way in one respect: a jury rejected the neighbors’ claims for money damages for negligence and private nuisance. The injunction survived because, the Appeals Court said, the environmental statute looks at future harm to the public rather than compensating past private losses.

The state has been involved for even longer. MassDEP cited the facility for nuisance odors in 2012 and 2014, revoked its operating permit in 2016, and entered a consent order with the company in June 2016. In 2017, the department said A Plus had violated the terms of an earlier consent order covering its compost operation at 88 River Street. The site reopened in 2022 under a new state permit. That September, MassDEP’s Southeast Regional Office issued a notice of noncompliance. The company appealed, then withdrew the appeal while saying it disagreed with the department’s findings. MassDEP issued a further order in 2025.

The Nov. 3 order says that by failing to prevent odors, the company is violating both 310 CMR 7.09 and the 2022 injunction.

Then and now

What has changed is the town’s posture. Because the Select Board sits as the Board of Health, the board that issued this order is the same one neighbors say they petitioned for years. Under former Chair Germain, neighbors say, those complaints went nowhere, even with a court injunction on the books and MassDEP involved. Under Chair Teresa Farley, the board has moved quickly: a written order with hard deadlines, served by a constable the same afternoon, and a public hearing on the calendar.

Badger has been on the job in Middleborough only since August, after doing the same work in Bridgewater. In a brief conversation last week, he was courteous, professional and well versed in the history and current status of the case.

Whether the order is being followed is the next question. On Nov. 5, two days after it was served, someone was operating the yellow front-end loader among the compost piles. The order allowed seven days to clear existing piles, so the activity alone does not show whether the work was removal or continued operation. The Nov. 16 hearing is where the board will take that up.