Where you smelled it doesn't necessarily indicate who dealt it.
Responding to a resident's letter regarding the "terrible smell of sewage" in the area of Salmon Arm's wastewater treatment plant on Narcisse Street SW., Coun. Kevin Flynn suggested much of the time those odours are emanating from other sources.
"I do think that 90 per cent of the time the odour isn’t our wastewater treatment plant, it’s agricultural land, it’s fertilizer, it’s other issues," said Flynn, responding to the letter at the May 26 council meeting. "I’m not saying we don’t have an odour issue. It’s certainly not as bad as it used to be and I do know part of our wastewater treatment plant upgrade is to try to improve the odour. But I do feel our wastewater treatment plant gets blamed for every odour that happens all year, all the time, and I don’t think that’s the case.
The letter writer said the "disgusting" smell can be detected from towards Shuswap Lake north of the treatment plant, to a mall across Highway 1 to the south.
Flynn commended staff's response to the writer (not included with the council agenda) and, to help "make sure people don’t blame every odour in this agricultural valley on the wastewater treatment plant," asked if that response could be made available to the public.
Mayor Alan Harrison agreed staff's response was "very complete and helpful," adding it "certainly is one of three goals we have in our retrofit of the wastewater treatment plant is the elimination of odour."
