Environmental odour news

The Northern Territory's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has ordered Australia's biggest beef producer to take "immediate action" to solve odour problems emanating from its new abattoir near Darwin. Residents living near the Australian Agricultural Company's (AACo) meatworks at Livingstone, have been complaining about bad smells for months. Speaking to ABC News last month, resident Glenn Spears described the smell from the abattoir site as "rank". "We've been experiencing some pretty terrible smells coming from that direction," he said. "Even when it's a really still morning, the smell... it's just a rank smell that's hanging in the air. "This morning it was almost sickening to smell, it was that bad." The odour is being caused by the poor quality of wastewater being used, and perhaps over-used, by AACo for irrigation. The EPA said it had comprehensively discussed AACo's proposed plan for improvi...

It's an issue that lingers in La Jolla like a bad odor. The unpleasant smell left by sea lions and birds at La Jolla Cove is again in the news with a judge having decided the city of San Diego is not responsible for solving the problem. The La Jolla Town Council will hold a hearing Thursday on the next steps in the ongoing battle against the smell left by accumulated animal droppings. Steve Haskins, La Jolla Town Council president, said the smell hurts the nearby businesses. “It (the smell) has a lot to do with the direction the wind is going,” Haskins told KPBS Midday Edition on Wednesday. “Unfortunately, it goes up to Prospect Street where the businesses are located. They say it’s a huge problem for them to keep customers, especially in the outdoor restaurants.” Last month, a Superior Court judge ruled against a group of La Jolla business owners, saying the city doesn't have a duty to control any nuisance caused by wild animals and isn't the cause of the odor. Citiz...

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is looking into a mysterious gas odor that prompted numerous calls from concerned residents in Contra Costa County on Monday morning. Starting around 9 a.m., the utility began fielding calls from the public reporting the smell of natural gas along the Highway 24 and Interstate 680 corridors, said Tamar Sarkissian, a PG&E spokeswoman. Crews were dispatched to each caller’s locations with testing equipment, but found no evidence of natural gas, Sarkissian said. The calls tapered off, she said, with the last reports coming in around 10:30 a.m. Investigators were looking into what could have caused the odor, but it did not appear that a gas leak was the culprit, she said.