Since the heavy rains of last Sunday, many island residents have wondered “What’s that smell?” Following an investigation by the local office of the Department of the Environment, it has been concluded that the odor is a natural phenomenon.
Since the heavy rains of last Sunday, many island residents have wondered “What’s that smell?” Following an investigation by the local office of the Department of the Environment, it has been concluded that the odor is a natural phenomenon.
“We are getting a lot of odor complaints from this area. After our (DEP) and the county’s investigation, we have concluded that it is a natural odor, not sewer odor, from the wetlands and the rain from this weekend,” said Keith Kleinmann with DEP via an e-mail correspondence.
According to Eileen Cardona with DEP, this event is not unusual for areas like Pine Island.
“What happens is when a wetland area lays dry for a long period of time and then get saturated with a heavy rainfall, this type of odor will emerge,” said Cardona. “We began getting phone calls about the terrible odor shortly after the weekend rains so this is not unusual for places like Pine Island where wetlands are abundant.”
Other troubled areas in the county include experiencing a foul odor include Punta Rassa, Sunshine MP, John Morris and Iona areas as well as the south side of Summerlin Road near Shell Point Drive in Fort Myers.