Specialty team on site, solution to stench coming from City’s lagoons is getting closer

NEWS — A cure for the smell coming from the City’s sewage lagoons is getting closer day by day, says utility services supervisor Dave Teasdale.

Residents started complaining about the smell during the May long weekend and the City has been working on the problem ever since. Teasdale said today a specialty team of mitigation experts from the U.S. has arrived and is busy setting up equipment that will pump hydrogen peroxide into the lagoons to restore oxygen levels.

The City is in the final stages of building and commissioning the new sewage treatment plant and has had to take much of it offline. Brocklehurst has been taking the brunt of the resulting smell but wind has also carried it to other parts of town.

Teasedale explained that when there’s not enough oxygen in the water the bacterial action begins to fail.

He said once the specialty team has its equipment set up the problem can be fixed in a day or two. “Optimistically” that could happen Friday but “realistically” it might be next Monday, he said.

Teasedale said the City knew when it started transferring from the old system to the new that there was a chance of encountering the smell problem but “nobody actually expected it to materialize.”

He compared the situation to a swimming pool: it can look fine one day and suddenly it goes haywire the next day.

Once the new sewage treatment plant is online in late June there will be no chance of a recurrence, he said.