Since You Asked: What's that stench?

Q: My wife and I have recently made a few trips up Highway 20 east of Marysville to get out of the valley heat. What is going on with the smell from Yuba-Sutter Disposal? There is a stretch that smells so bad in the heat that it's nauseating. Are there air quality regulations as to what is acceptable for foul smells from landfills? I know to them it smells like money but to everyone else it is not tolerable.

A: That's probably not the landfill you're smelling, said Dave Vaughn, YSDI's vice president and general manager. It's most likely the Feather River Organics composting operation, which receives all of the area's green yard waste, he said.

"Since the process involves the managed bio-degradation of green waste, some odors can be expected. These odors can concentrate in the immediate area during times of extreme temperatures and calm winds," Vaughn said.

Vaughn said YSDI will "do everything in our power to assure the least amount of odor."

By the way, the YSDI landfill closed in the mid-1990s, said Vaughn, and since a "significant portion" of the gases generated by the closed landfill are captured and burned off, that's probably not what you're smelling, he said.

So it must be the green yard waste that's making you and your wife turn green.

Karla Sanders, air quality compliance supervisor with the Feather River Air Quality Management District, said her agency hasn't received a complaint about odor from YSDI for quite awhile. When one is received, it is forwarded to the Solid Waste Local Enforcement Agency, which is part of the Yuba County's environmental health division.

You may remember a fire several years ago that started from spontaneous combustion in YSDI's compost heaps. That fire resulted in statewide changes to regulations governing composting operations, said Sanders.

It probably wouldn't help to run a string around the compost heap and hang up a few thousand of those pine tree car deodorizers from Wal-Mart. Either that or Caltrans could put up one of those electronic signs. On those hot, calm days it would say, "Hold breath." Then another sign a quarter-mile down the road would say, "OK, now let it out."

And thanks for the letter. When people detect foul odors, they think of "Since You Asked."

Q: Does Caltrans plan on putting a traffic signal at Highway 20 and Marysville Road in Browns Valley? Traffic moves fast and there are a lot of accidents.

A: There are no plans for a traffic signal, said Caltrans spokeswoman Kari Ehrman.

Instead, a "radar speed feedback sign" will be installed in a couple of months. It's a pilot program to see if making drivers aware of their speed will reduce accidents, Ehrman said.

Most of the accidents at the intersection are fender benders resulting from excessive speed, she said.

That sounds like an interesting experiment. Will knowledge of how stupidly they're driving make drivers drive less stupidly?

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 530-749-4710.