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BG officials taking action against 'ungodly' smell

There's a unique odor coming from Bowling Green and with several complaints the city is working to solve the issue at the Water Pollution Control Facility on Dunbridge Road.

BOWLING GREEN, OH (WTOL) - There's a unique odor coming from Bowling Green and with several complaints the city is working to solve the issue at the Water Pollution Control Facility on Dunbridge Road.

Just across the street from the source of the smell is a business park and there several workers were unable to go on camera, but say the smell has been there for years and can be "ungodly" at times.

Others in the area say it's affected business.

Imagine a beautiful day on the golf course, 70 plus degrees with a slight breeze, and the smell of sulfur or rotten eggs.

"I guess it depends typically on the weather you're getting," said Joseph Cohen, Supervisor at Forrest Creason Golf Course. "If it's a windy day, it's blowing in on us. I'll be driving the range picker over there across the street and I'll get a couple whiffs and it's not so great."

They say their customers notice the stench too.

"I get a couple complaints every now and then people say, 'It stinks out there,' stuff like that," added Cohen.

Bowling Green's utility director says they've received more complaints about the odor recently from not only neighboring businesses, but BGSU and drivers along I-75.

He says the smell is coming from two areas, the solid handling process and the septage receiving station. They are two separate buildings at the wastewater treatment plant. The city is looking at adding two carbon filters to absorb the odor.

"Basically it passes air or the exhaust air through this carbon filter," explained Bowling Green Utilities Director Brian O'Connell. "The carbon attracts the odor compounds that can be generated from whatever it is we are working with and the compounds stick to the carbon and then the odors not released from the plant."

The two systems would cost close to $480,000, which is available through the water sewer capital improvement fund.

With funds in place, the city wanted to approve the work for bids Monday at their council meeting, but could not because of a lack of council members in attendance.

"We're just trying to be good neighbors," explained O'Connell. "I the council decides to do something different and they want it to go through the regular process that's okay too. We just thought given the problem we have, if we can speed up the process a little bit we would like to do that."

The city council did give the ordinance a first read through Monday and are expected to address it again May 1st where they could vote to approve the project.

If that happens the utilities director says they hope to begin construction this summer and have the new system online and complete by October.

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