{"id":563026,"date":"2026-04-03T23:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/563026\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:21:10","slug":"mystery-smells-attack-sunny-brae-wastewater-treatment-plant-only-partially-to-blame-lost-coast-outpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/563026\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Smells Attack Sunny Brae; Wastewater Treatment Plant Only Partially to Blame | Lost Coast Outpost"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The wastewater treatment facility. Photo by Dezmond Remington.<\/p>\n

Human waste smells; lakes made of the stuff should reek. But unless you\u2019re standing next to it, the Arcata wastewater treatment plant usually doesn\u2019t. (Too badly.) That hasn\u2019t been the case recently: the odor drifts over Highway 101, into drivers\u2019 nostrils when they hit South G Street, out into Sunny Brae and into dozens of domiciles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plant is the obvious mother of smells that have terrorized Sunny Brae recently, but it\u2019s not the only parent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy does the Arcata sanitation plant smell so bad these days?\u201d one person asked the Outpost a couple days ago. \u201cStarting a month or two ago, the smell has been intense when driving north approaching Arcata. Today was particularly bad, but up until a few months ago I never noticed it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first began to smell it, I thought it was my vehicle burning coolant. Then I realized it wasn\u2019t coming from my truck; it was everywhere,\u201d said another in February. \u201cI\u2019ve asked everyone I can think of. Some people theorized that it\u2019s the Arcata Marsh\u2026 but in twenty years of living around it, I\u2019ve never smelled this, so I\u2019m not sure that that is the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, my fetid friends, the facility is only partly to blame. Arcata\u2019s director of environmental services Emily Sinkhorn told the Outpost that the facility had some of the highest levels of water inflow in a day ever recorded over the winter. Much of it was groundwater, funneled into the plant by aging sewer pipes. Expecting more heavy rain, city staff lowered the water levels in the oxidation ponds to ensure they had plenty of room; nature decided to throw their planning in the toilet and it hardly rained at all<\/a> until Wednesday. The bacteria in the oxidation ponds, exposed to air, created a mighty stench and wafted for miles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Sinkhorn said they managed to alleviate the problem during February and March. New and improved infrastructure<\/a> at the facility gives the city greater control over where they send water<\/a>, from treatment wetlands to UV disinfection basins to enhancement marshes, and they eventually managed to tamp down the smell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But residents in Sunny Brae kept on complaining, and Sinkhorn says the sources of these other smells are still unknown and likely outside city limits, perhaps a broken septic system. People described the smells as sulfuric or like sewage. They\u2019re worse near Old Arcata and Golf Course roads.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

City staff are ensuring that there aren\u2019t any problems with Arcata\u2019s sewer system, which, so far, has held up under scrutiny.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really appreciate detail when people call in,\u201d Sinkhorn said. \u201c\u2018I was here at this time, and the smell was coming from this direction.\u2019 That is helpful for us. We will continue to follow up, particularly on the city\u2019s infrastructure. We take that very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The wastewater treatment facility. Photo by Dezmond Remington. Human waste smells; lakes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-563026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}