Nearby Sewage Station Source Of Misery Landlord, Tenants Raise Stink, File Lawsuits Over Putrid Odor

The aroma that reached Terry Atkins’ nose horrified him.

Almost every day, the putrid odor of sewage coiled its way into his golf shop like an invisible snake.

“I remember customers coming into the store and kids saying ‘Daddy, it smells like dog poop in here,”’ Atkins said. “If the wind was blowing the wrong way - oh, boy.”

His skin began to itch constantly. Sores appeared on his arms and scalp. Then, he arrived at work one day to find golf bags and golf shoes mired in three inches of raw sewage.

“It was the most offensive, disgusting thing you’ve ever seen,” Atkins said. He, his staff and employees in a neighboring business became ill.

The source of their misery: A sewage pump station located about 15 feet from a retail building.

Tenants wonder why the city of Hayden would allow the building at Honeysuckle and U.S. Highway 95 to be built just feet away from a sewage station, especially when there had been warnings that it was a bad idea.

And they want to know why the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board just now is fixing the problem when something could have been done more than a year ago.

Tenants say their health has been harmed, their merchandise ruined and businesses nearly destroyed.

They say they’ve been misled by their landlord and forsaken by the city of Hayden and the sewer board.

The fingers are pointing and the legal documents are flying.

Tenants say their landlord never told them about the odor problem. The landlord says he wasn’t told about the lift station when he bought the land.

“This is not right,” Atkins said. “People should not treat people like this.”

The sewage lift station was built in the late 1980s. It’s one of three main stations used by the Hayden and Hayden Lake areas to pump waste to a treatment plant.

About 90 percent of the area’s sewage passes through the station, said John Tindall of the state Division of Environmental Quality.

In September 1993, William Wilson and the Wilson Family Partnership bought the land around the lift station. A few months later they built a 12,000 square foot building next to it.

On April 1, 1994, Atkins rented space from the Wilsons and opened Golf USA. Ron Thompson opened HomeScenes furniture store last March.

It didn’t take long for tenants to notice the odor. It usually crept in three times a day - morning, noon and early evening.

“It almost knocks you off your feet,” Thompson said.

On June 5, he found half his business submerged in sewage.

“The bathroom looked like a bomb had gone off,” he said.

About a quarter-mile away, the basement in Mark McKenzie’s rental home filled with six inches of sewage.

“It was the grossest thing,” he said.

Two things had happened during the night. First, a storm knocked the power out. That meant the pumps no longer were sending the sewage from the lift station to the treatment plant, said Charles Gay, lift station engineer.

Second, a clot of toilet paper blocked open a valve that was supposed to prevent sewage from backing up into the building through the floor drains.

The result was a mess.

Thompson and Atkins rushed about their stores, plucking merchandise from the quagmire. When they looked at their hands, their skin was bright red and burning.

Employees were plagued by diarrhea, nausea, stomach cramps and headaches for weeks after.

“We were so physically ill, we had to close the entire store one day,” said Atkins, who now suffers from a skin disease called pruritis.

Although cleaning costs were paid, Thompson and Atkins say they lost more than $8,000 dollars in merchandise between them.

“It almost put us out of business,” Thompson said.

Earlier this month, he and Thompson filed tort claims against the city of Hayden and the sewer board, claiming the pump station was improperly designed and maintained.

And, “In my opinion, I strongly feel this building never should have been placed in this position,” Thompson said.

He’s not alone.

DEQ documents show the agency told the sewer board that having a building that close to the lift station was a bad idea.

“It appears that the district should have secured more land than is presently available for the pump station,” Gary Gaffney of the DEQ wrote to Kent Helmer, administrator for the sewer board. “It appears compatible land use and future space needs were overlooked when the pump station and building were located so close together.”

Tindall said he also wonders why the city would allow the building next to the pump station.

Although Robert Wuest, Hayden building inspector, was concerned about having a building so close, he said there was little the city could do.

The Wilson family wanted to put its building there. And the city has no limit on how close a structure can be to a sewage station, he said.

“They knew there was an odor problem there in 1993 before I ever finalized the building,” Wuest said last week. “I let them know there was a lift station there.”

The Wilsons had bought a premier chunk of land and were in a hurry to develop it - fighting time and weather, Wuest said. “The Wilsons are both very good people,” he said, but added they may have rushed into a bad decision.

Wuest gave the Wilsons final approval on the building in December 1993.

Although Wuest says the Wilsons constructed a quality building that followed all requirements, employees at the sewer board disagree.

After the sewage backup, a sewer employee suspected the building drains did not meet city regulations.

“Not only was the possibility of a spill greatly increased but if gas traps were not installed with auto primers, the people who work inside could be exposed to large amounts of potentially toxic gasses,” Kevin Martin wrote in an internal memo. “I feel the potential for injury from gas inhalation far out weighs the monetary loss,” Martin wrote.

Although William Wilson would not comment on the situation, he has filed two lawsuits - one against Hayden and the sewer board, the other against previous landowner Chester Davis, Schneidmiller Realty and others involved in the land sale.

Wilson claims Realtors didn’t tell him about the sewage station when he was deciding whether to buy the land. He says he never would have bought the property had he known about it and the odor problems.

In court documents, Schneidmiller Realty points out that Wilson toured the property before he bought it.

In his lawsuit, Wilson also calls his building “not habitable as a commercial retail enterprise.” But Thompson, who remains in the building, said his landlord never warned him the building is uninhabitable.

Despite the problems, DEQ officials say the lift station is built to code and meets all requirements.

The sewer board also is putting in a backup generator and adding a third pump, Gay said. An odor control system will run smelly air through a filter and then shoot it high into the air through a flag pole.

DEQ documents show the improvements originally were approved in January 1994. Helmer, board administrator, said it has taken so long because the board considered moving the lift station across the street. When that didn’t pan out, they decided to go back to the original plan.

No matter who - or what - is to blame for the mess, building tenants and neighbors say they are left holding the bag.

The McKenzies moved to a new home. Atkins moved Golf USA to a building on Appleway.

The odors still weave through Thompson’s store. Even heavy potpourri cannot cover up the smell when it gets really bad. He’s looking for a suitable place to relocate. “We are here, not by choice.”

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