Delco, Pa. hot on trail of the The Big Stink
Who knew that a smell could cause such a stink?
For months now Delaware County emergency officials have been trying to find the source of the stench that has plagued communities along the I-95 corridor all the way out to Middletown and even in Marple in the central part of the county.
So far they’ve come up empty.
The smell pops up, the 911 Center is flooded with calls, crews are dispatched, but by the time the get there the stink usually dissipates.
Delaware County, especially those towns along the riverfront, is no stranger to these kinds of smells. For decades the county was home to sprawling refineries that would routinely belch out their fair share of unpleasant odors. The county also is home to a mammoth series of underground pipelines that ferried petroleum products to those facilities.
But this most recent problem is different.
And Delaware County Emergency Services boss Tim Boyce believes the recent smells are emanating from a fixed point – and he’s hot on the trail.
The county already set up some monitoring stations in key areas to allow them to respond quicker to reports of incidents. Now they are taking another step in teaming with the state to get to the source of the problem.
Boyce believes they are close to finding the source of the stench.
“The operating theory is it’s a fixed facility of some sorts,” he said. “A storage place, a manufacturer, a rail yard, the ships in anchorage … It doesn’t appear that it’s a transient issue. It’s just happened too many times.”
After a string of incidents in November, the stink has returned in recent weeks, with three separate occurrences sparking calls to the 911 center, including one a week ago that centered on the Chester area.
Reports have emanated from Chester Heights, Aston and Concord in the western end of the county, as well as along the Industrial Highway in Ridley Park.
In each instance, callers have complained of an odor resembling gasoline or home heating oil. In each case, the smell has wafted across the region and quickly dissipated.
Adding to the concern is the presence of the Mariner East Pipeline project, which snakes along 19 miles in the western end of the county from the Chester County line in Thornbury to the former Sunoco refinery in Marcus Hook. Construction of the pipeline has been plagued by leaks and runoffs, leading some to wonder if that is the source of at least some of the problem.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is now heading the investigation and has assigned an agent full time to the Chester Fire Department, in part to allow faster response times in the event of further incidents.
In addition, the county is moving to seek funding for additional weather stations and also is now using a crowdsourcing weather service called Weatherlink. com to provide real-time, accurate data on wind speed and other factors in tracking the stink.
Boyce noted that not only will this information help track where the odor is coming from, but also where it is heading in the event an evacuation is deemed necessary. No such action has been needed to date.
With all this new data and manpower at his fingertips, Boyce now says the county is much better-equipped to respond to the next incident – and he hopes when that happens, his department will finally be able to track the source of the problem.
“There’s a lot going on and I hope within the next two weeks even more will go on,” Boyce said.
And he has a warning that once the source is located, there will be a further investigation and potentially a criminal investigation. Boyce said he will not hesitate to forward any findings to the state Attorney General’s office, which could then initiate its own investigation.
We smirk about the big stink. But the truth is this is one of those quality of life issues that we depend on government to deal with. We urge Boyce and the state to keep the pedal to the metal in tracking the Big Stink.
The whole situation stinks. Literally Now, enough is enough.