EASTHAMPTON — Residents have noticed a strong smell coming from the Ferry Street area, due to the city’s wastewater treatment plant being temporarily interrupted for an ongoing infrastructure upgrade.
While there is not an expected time for the smell to go away, Director of Public Works Greg Nuttleman expects it to be less prominent within the next few days. On Wednesday morning, the city announced the repairs to the public through a Facebook post, detailing the smell coming from the “New City” area, though there was no cause for concern about the interruption.
The post states, “The biological process at our wastewater treatment plant has been temporarily interrupted due to an ongoing mechanical aerator replacement project. This project is a critical upgrade to ensure the plant continues to operate reliably for years to come. However, it will take some time for operations to stabilize and return to normal.”
The interruption coupled with lower than normal water flows and increased solids concentration led to the increase in odor. Interim Mayor Salem Derby asked Nuttleman to attend Wednesday’s City Council meeting to answer questions from the councilors.
The total project will replace four mechanical aerators at the treatment facility and make repairs to the aeration basin. Nuttleman said at the meeting that currently the two aerators on the west side have been replaced and the other two on the east side will be replaced at some point in the future. Additionally, return and waste pumps are being replaced as part of this project. During the replacement, they hope the disruption of the biological treatment process the plant facilitates does not happen again.
“Although the odor is certainly inconvenient, residents can continue to utilize their sanitary sewer service as normal. It has taken some time for processes to recover and they should notice significant improvement over the next few days,” Nuttleman said in an email to the Gazette.
“The city is going to be as responsive as possible to let people know about that,” Derby said about the future aerator repairs. “There’s not really a lot you can do to prepare for it. This really does highlight how important our infrastructure is and this is an infrastructure upgrade project that happens to have a side effect that is unpleasant.”
The project has been in place for a long time, after Nuttleman spearheaded efforts to secure the grant funding several years ago. According to minutes from a meeting on July 10, 2024, the City Council voted unanimously to appropriate $299,023 from the capital stabilization fund to provide match funding for approximately $1.1 million in grants.
The grant funding comes through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundations (NFWF), Long Island Sound Futures Grant for $883,475 and additional funding through the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Gap III Energy grant worth $179,173.
Nuttleman said that the aerators at the plant have been in service well past their expected service lives and the grant funding provides an excellent opportunity to replace them while minimizing impact to Easthampton’s water and sewer ratepayers.
The treatment plant is located in Precinct 2, the area covered by City Councilor Felicia Jadczak. She encouraged communication in any way to inform residents when operations will take place in the future, including using neighborhood email lists set-up by the city.
“My request would be if we could leverage city communication platforms to be a little more communicative with residents because I think that’s one of the major sources of frustration that’s been expressed to me personally as the councilor for this area — is that people didn’t know what was happening, where the smell was coming from, how long it was going to last, why it was going on,” Jadczak said at the meeting.
Nuttleman said as soon as he was made aware of the smell, he informed the public.
“It seems like this problem really took off over (last) weekend and it wasn’t brought to my attention until yesterday (Tuesday) morning so I wasn’t able to get a communication out in a timelier manner,” Nuttleman said at the meeting.
City Councilor Tamara Smith asked why the project was done in August and September when it is hot out and may have to open their windows. Nuttleman said work had to be done within grant deadlines and construction contract periods, although the cooler weather will help alleviate the smell.
At-large Councilor Koni Denham thanked the city employees working on the project, noting that while the smell is prominent in Precinct 2 it is reaching broader communities.
“That smell is pungent to put it mildly, so I just want to make sure that the city is doing something to acknowledge and make sure that our employees have what they need in order to be safe and healthy,” Denham said.