Let's be proactive with city's smelly situation

I am writing to the Pilot to express my displeasure at how the city of Whitefish is managing the smelly situation with our sewage treatment facility. 

My family and I have lived in Whitefish for about four years, and two of those years we have lived on Shady River Lane. Our house is about one half mile from the sewage pond and initially in 2013-14 and even in 2015 we have not really noticed any significant odor or frequency of an odor from the facility. However over the course of the last four months, we have had many days where the foul stench of sewage feces is occupying our air around our house and in our neighborhood.

The smell had become noticeably more powerful and frequent in our neighborhood over the last month. Not only does it invade our neighborhood, but it inhibits us from taking our children and dogs for walk on the path along the Whitefish river near the plant. I have also had to change my jogging route because it makes me nauseous to breath the air on the running path.

Over a month ago during one of my runs on the path surrounding turd lake, I stopped the supervisor who was driving across the path from the river into the facility gate. He agreed the smell had increased noticeably since February 2016 in both potency and frequency and he commented it was worse than he could recall in the last 20 years. He indicated they had been trying to resolve the issue by running the pumps full tilt to oxygenate the pond to hopefully decrease the smell.

I also commented on the pumping frequency of the pumps causing a whining noise, especially noticeable at night. I told him that was a secondary problem to the smell but solvable with a dampener system, and I asked if they had any other methods or ideas on how to decrease the smell. He said the oxygenation had worked in the past and they would continue to monitor the progress. I expressed concern the city had better get on top of this problem quickly before summer or we would be smelling it all during the warm weather and that the surrounding neighborhoods need to open their windows at night to cool down their houses. He acknowledged the problem and said they were working on it.

Here we are now with little to no progress as the smell is worse than ever and summer will be upon us next month with warmer weather. I believe the city has not been proactive with this situation and has failed to bring in competent experts to resolve this issue short term. If the city is thinking it can use the familiar tactics to resolve something that is spinning out of control, they unfortunately may be sorely mistaken at our expense.

Proactivity is the key, using outside experts and resources can offer solutions that the city has never considered or employed and it may be our only chance to resolve the problem before the summer is in full swing. There are many neighborhoods surrounding this facility that are affected by this foul smell and I am confident we will all be very unhappy with the city if this is not addressed proactively before summer is upon us. Folks attempting to sell houses this summer in the immediate area are impacted by this issue which will clearly affect their ability to sell promptly and ultimately can affect the local property values.

I wrote an email to the city council expressing my concern and calling for a short term plan of action, but was unable to attend the May 16 date because I am traveling in China. Ironically, the foul stench of the Third World country I am visiting reminded me of how my neighborhood smells in beautiful Whitefish, Montana.

— Mark Owens, Whitefish