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Wastewater plant odor not likely to go away
WESTERNPORT — With the bulk of last weekend’s heavy snow still blanketing the hillsides and front yards of area neighborhoods being dotted with blinking colored lights, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
In Westernport, however, it just might not smell like the holiday season.
Stoney Run Road resident Tom Marsh expressed his dismay Monday at the Westernport mayor and council meeting that “such a repugnant stinking odor” from three tanks at the Westernport Wastewater Treatment Facility, located off state Route 135, has yet to be addressed. He first wrote to the three-member board of directors of the Upper Potomac River Commission three years ago this month, seemingly to no avail. He mailed another letter Dec. 5 to board chairman Jack McMullen and members Dr. R. Neil Williams and Wendell Beitzel, who also serves as state delegate in District 1B, which includes Westernport.
Since the Westernport Wastewater Treatment Facility began operation in 1960, the UPRC has been tasked with overseeing its daily operations. The facility treats industrial waste from the NewPage Luke paper mill and municipal sewage from Westernport, Luke and Piedmont, W.Va.
“I am totally amazed that anyone would expect for our community and our citizens to have to endure this ongoing terrible air quality and offensive odor,” Marsh read from a letter he sent to the UPRC.
Marsh said he believes the air quality is unhealthy for town residents and also has an adverse impact “on the very economic well-being of the community of Westernport.”
“Why would anyone want to build or locate here ... or open a business here ... if they would have to endure such a terrible stinking smell and poor air quality all of the time?” Marsh asked.
Referring to a nearby gas station, Marsh said it’s the only place he knows where you can “fill up and throw up at the same time.”
Marsh requested the support of Mayor Amel Morris and the Town Council. Morris said he and the commissioners would discuss the issue.
Reached Wednesday for comment, Beitzel said it’s doubtful much, if anything, could be done about the odor.
“Unfortunately, that’s one of the negatives,” Beitzel said. “But having that mill in the community for years and years has provided employment.”
He said little could be done “short of shutting the mill down.”
“One thing about sewage plants (is) they have a tendency to stink,” Beitzel said.
Marsh has suggested the wastewater tanks be covered. Williams said the system is different than the one in Frostburg — in which the tanks are covered.
“You just couldn’t close it off with a cover,” said Williams, a member of the Town Council in the late 1950s when the project was approved. “The one down here has a lot of heat coming out of it. It has to be ventilated ... to eliminate the heat.”
The Upper Potomac River Commission next meets Wednesday at noon at 528 Maryland Ave. in Westernport. Beitzel said the issue could come up for discussion before the commission.
Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.
