By SUE RYAN
News staff writer
May 30, 2007 

People know when the wind blows on the Hood River waterfront because sports enthusiasts are ever-present, catching it with their equipment. But it’s also easy to tell the wind is blowing because it smells.

“The hydrogen sulfide level is what creates the smell,” said Dave Bick, the city’s engineer. “The higher the level, the stronger the smell is.”

He is referring to the odor from the city’s wastewater treatment plant located off Riverside Drive next to Interstate 84.

Bick tapped a finger on side-by-side graphics in a half-inch-thick bound study completed in April. A ring of concentric circles superimposed on a map of Hood River and the plant shows how far and wide the smell spreads depending on the wind and load the plant is handling at the time.

“We estimate if we do this that the smell would be contained much closer to the plant,” Bick said.

The Hood River City Council will consider a proposal Tuesday night for CH2M Hill/OMI to do a preliminary engineering study to cap the primary clarifier at the plant. If the city does eventually decide to take the next step after that, it would cost an estimated $420,000 for the construction work.

Doug Nichols manages the plant for CH2M Hill/OMI, which contracts with the city. On a tour of the facility Thursday, he explained the odor problem as a series of stages.

The clarifier treats effluent as the first stage in the wastewater process. While worker Dale Byers hosed down the primary clarifier, Nichols gestured from west to east to show the problem that has created complaints during the past.

Last year, the city took a step to improve the situation. After the initial study, it was found that one of the issues creating the smell was an open grate. That spot is where sewage haulers, those companies who service septic tanks and portable toilets, discharge their loads.

“One of the biggest sources of odor was septic haulers,” Bick said.

Hood River had the company construct a metal cover, looking much like a small dogshed, to go over the grate. The second part was a timed water bath, which runs for several minutes once a load is dumped.

However, Nichols pointed out that doesn’t help the situation once the effluent hits the primary clarifier. The concentration of the effluent from the portable toilets is much stronger as it contains undiluted material. During the summer months, those dumps increase during harvest season in the orchards and with heavy use in U.S. Forest Service campgrounds.

Bick agreed that while the improvement helped, the problem wasn’t solved and complaints about the odor from the plant continued.