What's that sulfur smell?

Q: I live over in the 5-year-old subdivision off of Bogue Road and Gold River Drive. Ever since I moved here I and my neighbors have noticed a sulfur smell in the air at night.

One can really smell it when biking down the levee toward the water treatment plant. In fact it's so strong that my kids and I choke and we can hardly breathe, so we have to turn back. We also smell this in our water, especially when the water is hot coming out of the tap.

I have called the water district many times and the city and I either get a denial that there is any smell or I am told that the problem has nothing to do with them. I just keep getting passed around.

A: That would be the sewage treatment plant on Burns Drive you're smelling, not the water treatment plant, which is on the other side of town.

City Utilities Director Bill Lewis acknowledged that the sewage plant does produce odors, and that his office last year received a "handful" of calls about them, including one from your neighborhood. That doesn't count the woman who called three or four times without leaving her name or callback number, he said.

Certain processes at the plant do produce odors, which are more noticeable when air is still because of a temperature inversion, especially in the late summer and fall, said Lewis.

A sewage plant is a sewage plant is a sewage plant, to paraphrase the late Gertrude Stein.

Plant workers can take measures to reduce the odors, such as stopping a particular process or spraying deodorizer on the solid matter being treated. But workers need to know right away that there's a problem, not the next morning, said Lewis.

Call 822-3264 to make a complaint. If no one picks up, leave a message. The plant is staffed 24 hours, he said.

Complaints are down "dramatically" from 10 years ago, he added.

As for your complaint that odors from the plant are getting into your hot water, that's not really possible, Lewis said.

Water in your neighborhood comes from the Feather River and can take on an odor when the water level is low like it was last year. The odor is usually described as "musty," "dirty" or algae-like, said Lewis.

It is, in fact, algae that's the culprit, although it's not harmful to health. A new activated carbon process installed this year at the water treatment plant on Northgate Drive should help next year when the river level is low, he said.

A home water filter, such as the type found in a Brita water pitcher, will remove the algae odor, he said.

Since You Asked is published Tuesdays. Send questions to reporter Rob Young at the Appeal-Democrat, P.O. Box 431, Marysville CA 95901, e-mail him at ryoung@appealdemocrat.com or call 749-4710.