Odor complaints from people who live near Lexington sewage treatment plants have led Mayor Linda Gorton to pay 75-thousand dollars to a Louisville company to figure out the problem. Charles Martin is the director of the city’s Division of Water. He said complaints are off the charts over the last month, particularly near the Town Branch and Brannon Crossing plants.
“I have spent the last three weeks really kind of trying to find the open window so to speak, you know, what is it that is or the one or two things that are that are it and as I plug the one hole in the dike, then other ones pop up.”
Martin said Webster Environmental Associates may recommend a program to monitor the performance of odor control equipment, some of which is about 20 years old. He said the odor problems seem to vary, depending on the day and recent weather.
“It's time to bring the cavalry in, I've got a lot of things that I have found that I feel like that that need to be addressed, have been addressed. But I also have a lot of theories about other things that may or may not be contributing to the problem.”
Martin said the problems may be as much weather-related as they are mechanically-related – and the city may need to purchase new equipment to solve them. Lexington Environmental Quality and Public Works is a financial supporter of WEKU.
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