Escaping Sewer Fumes Causing A Big Stink

There’s really no nice way to say it: The neighborhood stinks.

Well, sometimes. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the people who live there.

A block of houses on Cedar Road, between Francis and Decatur avenues, is periodically plagued by a sewage stench so severe it forces the neighbors indoors. And even then, they have to make sure their doors and windows are closed or the aroma will waft in after them.

They plug-in room fresheners, ionizers, air-purifiers and cinnamon-scented simmer pots to cover the smell.

The problem started four or five years ago when the county built the Marion Hay sewage pump station at Whitworth College and connected to the city’s sewer system.

About 400,000 gallons of sewage a day flows through the 24-inch line. It hits a high spot at Cedar and Decatur. A vent was installed to release air and prevent a vacuum that could collapse the pipe.

The passing sewage smell floated out of the vent and through the neighborhood.

“From that time on, it’s been horrible,” said neighbor Cindy Nelson, wrinkling her nose. “The first 20 years we lived here there was no smell. Now it’s so bad sometimes it gags you.”

Vern Jarvis, Spokane County wastewater manager, said he hadn’t anticipated that the odor would be released into the neighborhood. The county went to work solving the problem.

Two or three years ago, the county installed a custom-built contraption that resembles a 12-foot-tall beige candy cane lashed to a power pole. It’s loaded with charcoal to filter the smell from the air before it’s released into the neighborhood.

Steve Thompson, who lives across the street from the filter system, is the first to know when the charcoal is running low. The smell - something between rotten eggs and cow manure, according to neighbors - floats across the street to his front door.

Thompson said the filter contraption “looks hideous” but the neighborhood smells a lot better than it used to.

“The county has been wonderful about trying to troubleshoot this problem, but it is pretty strange,” he said, looking at the weird pole.

The smell is sometimes still so thick in the summer it keeps the neighbors inside their houses with their windows closed tight.

“It can be pretty bad in the summer with the kids running in and out of the house,” said Keith Shears, whose house shares the corner lot with the pole.

Neighbors also wonder if there is a health hazard connected with breathing sewage fumes.

“It just seems there has to be germs attached to that sewage smell,” said Shears. “How do you know what germs are emitted?”

Jarvis said, while the sewage creates an offensive odor, there is no health concern.

Jarvis said they are continuing to work on the problem. As more north county neighborhoods connect to the system, the sewage - which now lingers in the pipe up to four days - will move through quicker and the smell will be reduced.

“We are trying to solve this. We want to be good neighbors, too,” said Jarvis.

, DataTimes