The stinky smells sweeping across East and South Norwalk need to be identified, and DPW officials want to know when they occur. Apparently, the sludge hauler can adjust his schedule which is currently between 4-6 am and around midday.
The smells however persist through 7-8 am in East Norwalk most days, something I notice on my trips down Van Zant. The midday smells I catch in South Norwalk, like yesterday. But I also noticed that the smells did not seem to come from accross the river, but the sewer manhole right in front the the Maritime garage.
From the Hour:
In response, the authority vowed to explore whether the contracted sludge hauler, who visits the treatment plant off South Smith Street twice daily, can rearrange his schedule.
In addition, Department of Public Works officials urged those catching a whiff of offensive odors near the plant to pick up the telephone immediately.
“It varies day-to-day, where the odors are and what the odors are,” said Elisabeth O. Bardon, operations manager for the department. “I’m going to put something up on the Web site, right on the city’s home page, that would encourage people to call the 24-hour number for OMI, or customer service, because having generalizations about ‘the plant stinks’ is not really helpful.”
“We need to try to pinpoint when it’s occurring, the wind direction, what’s happening at the plant at that time,” Bardon added.
The city’s Web site is www.norwalkct.org. The local customer service number for Operations Management International, operator of the city owned plant, is (203) 854-5517.
Harold F. Alvord, director of public works, said “hundreds of variables” factor into odors in and around the treatment plant, including harbor tide, wind direction and atmospheric inversions.
According to public works officials, some odor-reduction systems at the plant function while others do not. The principle source of odor, however, is the de-watering building and sludge that is hauled away by truck twice daily: Between 4 and 6 a.m. and around midday. That operation, which can take up to an hour, opens a large bay door from which odors escape from the building.
“So right at lunch time and right at breakfast time?” said Frederika Bikakis Hajian, an authority member. “So if there was a difference in the time, when these guys are hauling, maybe we can solve some of (the problem). You can ask and that’s a very inexpensive way to try to see if we can’t solve this.”
source: The Hour, Odors linger at city’s sewage plant, By Robert Koch, November 20, 2007
