At least one resident living near the sewage treatment plant has been complaining about obnoxious odors being caused by the plant, but Sanitary District officials say no specific source of an ongoing problem can be found on site.

George Bridges of Hamilton Drive also has complained about excessive noise coming from the plant and the fact that loud safety “back-up” beepers on vehicles have awoken him as early as 4 a.m.

The wastewater plant near Grande and Saguaro boulevards is currently undergoing a $9 million improvement project, but few, if any, of the complaints seem to stem from that work.

Bridges said in one email that he vomited one morning on his patio due to the smell.

In another email to Mayor Jay Schlum he wrote, “I could not sit on my patio this (morning) for coffee.

“Now that we have full disclosures with each sale we need to let everyone in (real estate) know that this must be done and that will in effect devalue all the areas surrounding the plant below the low market value…this seems like a class action suit in the making and needs to be attended to with great care and urgency.”

The Sanitary District is a separate government entity from the Town of Fountain Hills and operates under “special district” laws within Arizona statutes.

Sanitary District Manager Ron Huber told the five-man Sanitary Board Sept. 16 that he has spent considerable time attempting to address concerns raised by Bridges and a neighbor, David Caribardi, who is a winter visitor currently living in Michigan.

One incident involving noise and possible odor stemmed from three days in which back-up gas-powered generators had to be run at the plant.

“The power supply from SRP was irregular, so we had to fire up the generators for three days near the end of August,” Huber said.

“It would have smelled worse if we hadn’t done that. This is an industrial facility, and we have to keep it going 24 hours a day without interruption.

“There was some odor with the start-up of a process upset. There were probably three or four hours of unpleasant odors.”

A separate incident involving a rare broken part that took two days to replace caused some blowers to operate at different hours, resulting in extra noise, Huber said.

The part was replaced and the blowers returned to normal operation.

Another incident was cited as back-up alarms on equipment.

“There are OSHA requirements we need to meet and certain moving equipment and trucks need back-up alarms,” Huber said.

“Sometimes we might need to operate a forklift at 2 in the morning to move a sludge dumpster.

“I did remove one back-up alarm from one pick-up truck, and told staff to use that one at night, but we can’t remove the others.”

Huber said he also informed the contractor working on site for the improvement project that work cannot commence before 6 a.m., as specified in the town’s noise ordinance.

Huber said Bridges was still complaining of odors weeks after the above odor incident, but to date he and his staff have not been able to identify any other possible sources.

“We’ve checked the sewer lines in front and behind his house, we’ve gone on odor patrol around the plant, but I cannot fix what I cannot smell,” Huber said.

“To date no one has been able to detect the odors when he says they are. And there have been no other complaints to us.”

Bridges and Caribardi have sent numerous emails to Huber and Town of Fountain Hills officials about the situation, but Huber said he’s done all he could.

“We don’t smell it around here and can’t identify it,” Huber told the board. “I’m not saying he hasn’t smelled anything, but we can’t say what it is.”

Board member Bruce Hansen said numerous odor complaints over the years have been satisfactorily handled by district staff.

“We have many letters on file saying how well our staff has worked with people,” Hansen said.

“All he (Bridges) has to do is talk with Ron and we’ll work with him. We need cooperation from Mr. Bridges as well.”

Caribardi wrote The Times, “We are all very concerned about both the current situation and what the future holds with the onset (of) the Ellman project.

“The area residents feel they have suffered enough with the waste from the entire city being treated in the center of our residential area, and we do not want to be further burdened with their waste, too!

“During my involvement with these issues last fall, residents told me they were trying to relocate solely because of their proximity to the plant, and many others spoke of possibly suing their Realtors for not disclosing the proximity of the plant and all of its noise pollution and smell.”

When contacted after the meeting, Bridges said by email he was not impressed.

“I know this has been an ongoing problem since the ’70s, so in the event of more problems and no solutions offered up other than ‘We are making changes and working on this weekly/monthly,’ we will join hands with the others that have lost a great portion of property value and of the ability to sell their real estate investments.

“That said, we will proceed with a class action lawsuit.”