City Council Addresses Foul Odors Near Wastewater Treatment Plant

There is an ongoing, rapidly increasing crisis involving putrid smells and accompanying insects in and around the City of Cullman Waste Treatment Plant.

The Cullman City Council Meeting drew an unusually large group of citizens to the  Lucille N. Galin Auditorium  inside Cullman City Hall at 7:00 pm Monday night.

The majority of attendees were very concerned citizens representing several far southeastern City of Cullman of housing additions:  Ryan Creek ,  Abbey View ,  Heritage Place  and  Brook Ridge.

These residents filled the auditorium with two major concerns on their minds about the City of Cullman’s  Waste Water Treatment Plant  on Welti Road SW:

1). Strong, putrid odors

2). Overwhelming masses of insects  primarily black filter flies (aka sewer flies)

During the open comments portion of the meeting, Council President  Garlan Gudger  invited an orderly flow of residents from the affected neighborhoods to take the podium and make public their concerns, complaints, and recommendation.

Each person who spoke indicated their neighborhoods has always had mild and intermittent odor emanating from the Waste Water Treatment Plant. However, each person who spoke pointed out that over the last 2 years, the putrid stench had become more intense, more omnipresent and far more frequent. Bob Weston, a longtime Ryan Creek resident, explained that he and his family experience the olfactory assault inside their home even with all doors and windows closed.

Insects, primarily sewer flies, were a secondary nonetheless equally disturbing aspect of the citizen’s concerns.

The City of Cullman Wastewater Treatment Plant is a 4.75 million gallon per day rated plant. Soiled wastewater is collected via approximately one hundred miles of varying size pipes.

Wastewater is treated by a two-stage biological contact chamber system, and with clarification and ultraviolet disinfection. Treated water is then discharged into the receiving stream (Eightmile Creek).

Samples are routinely collected and tested, per ADEM (Alabama Department of Environmental Management) and federal regulations.

In closing the public comments section of the meeting, local Realtor  Carol King  took her turn at the podium. She expressed that she has lost multiple sales opportunities in the nearby neighborhoods due to the foul smell. King has gone as far as to stop listing and showing property in these locations because her conscience and professional ethics precludes her from doing so.

The fundamental message from the speakers’ comments was simple:

T here is an ongoing, rapidly increasing crisis involving putrid smells and accompanying insects   in and around the City of Cullman Waste Treatment Plant.

While Council President Gudger indicated that this was the first time the Council had received community complaints of this nature, he along with the other Council members and Mayor all seemed genuinely concerned about the situation and vowed to look into the matter closely AND come up with a short-term as well as a permanent solution to the problem.

For a short-term fix for the odor issues, the Council is leaning towards a solution introduced by Anthony Quattlebaum , an 8-year Ryan Creek resident. With this guidance, the Council is exploring an odor neutralizing system provided by a Canadian firm with a Houston, Texas U.S. headquarters:  Ecolo Odor Control Technologies Inc.

This company’s system provides a mist-driven, airborne chemical neutralizer which would be installed around the perimeter of the facility. Over the next week, the council members will be reviewing all technical data on the system as well as financial costs. It is possible the Council will have all pertinent information in hand by next Tuesday night’s city council meeting. If this odor control system is selected and approved, Ecolo Odor Control Technologies Inc. is expected to have their solution in place and operational within 30 days of the contract signing.

From the insect control perspective, options are primarily limited to an increase in sprayed insecticides at the Waste Water Treatment plant and surrounding neighborhoods. Mayor Max A. Townson indicated at the meeting that the city has stepped up spraying for flies and related insects. On the downside, he pointed out that chemical treatment for flies also kills beneficial insects like butterflies and honey bees.

From a long-term perspective, the city has been engaged in an ongoing construction project at the plant designed to the greatly increase the capacity for sewer water treatment. Unfortunately, that project was dealt a major logistic setback by the Christmas Day flooding of 2015. That high water event destroyed a significant percentage of the project’s progress. With more than a million dollars in damages incurred, plant operators have had to alter their treatment protocols. Until which time the larger construction project at the facility can be completed, and the appropriate wastewater treatment methods are instituted, other forms of odor control – such as Ecolo – will be needed.

The plant’s waste digestors are off-line and not functioning due to the Christmas Day flood damage. Waste digesters are used to process waste water ‘sludge’ (the primary progenitor of foul odors). Until which time the larger construction project at the facility can be completed, and the appropriate treatment methods instituted, area residents will have to tolerate both on an olfactory and airborne pest challenge over the coming weeks.

The Cullman City Council and Mayor’s Office are keenly aware of the situation. They are committed to short and long term assistance to overcome this challenging and disturbing situation.

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Taxonomy

• Anaerobic Digestion
• Sewage Treatment
• Sludge Management
• Wastewater Treatment
• Sewage