'Oppressive' smell affecting neighbors

ENGLEWOOD — Kit Schultz has no air conditioning inside of his house near the Historic Lemon Bay Cemetery.

On a hot and windy day, a gaseous stench fills his house.

Nearby is an Englewood Water District vacuum pump that is undergoing a large rehab process.

“That sewer gas has to vent out somewhere, and they used to have a leach field,” Schultz said. “Now, they’ve got a pipe going up while they’re doing this building, and if the wind is right, I don’t have an air conditioner, it blows right in my daggum windows.”

Schultz is referring to the V-1 vacuum station, sitting at Second Avenue and Alta Vista Avenue. The station was the first of its kind for Englewood when the vacuum sewer system was first installed in 1996.

With more than 27 years of technological advances in sewage systems, EWD decided it was time to upgrade its oldest vacuum station, and eventually the remaining six.

The release of the sewer gas is a side-effect of the construction.

EWD Operations Manager Keith Ledford Jr. said the vacuum system will be outside so that sewage can still be maintained in the area back in December when the rehab project began. He forewarned residents about the noisiness.

The stench is the main issue for Schultz and his neighbors who are less than 100 feet from the station. He said it’s not too bad if the wind is blowing the opposite direction, but he is worried about how the stench and noise affects his property.

“If they smell that and hear that noise, nobody’s gonna be able to sell anything around here,” Schultz said. “I called everybody all around Sarasota, but you just end up going around in circles.”

Between the noise at night and the smell during the day, Schultz is at his wits end about the conundrum.

“It’s oppressive,” he said. “Those people who are working on the place — if they had a house here, they’d be upset, too.”

Ledford said that the odor is actually exhaust from the vacuum station.

“Under normal operation conditions, the exhaust from the vacuum pumps is piped to a mulch bed to help neutralize the odors,” Ledford said. “Part of the rehab project includes the replacement of the existing mulch bed.”

Since the mulch bed, not a leach bed, is non-operational at the moment, the exhaust is discharged into the air.

“Based on the current construction schedule, the mulch bed should be back in operation in the next two to three weeks,” Ledford said. “We have tried to dampen the noise for the surrounding neighbors by covering the equipment and placing a plywood wall between the equipment and the nearest houses.”

Steve Heward, with the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County, said that while the stench is unpleasant, it is not a public health concern.