Odor Problems in Pacific, Pierce County, Washington
Overview
This case was a class action brought on behalf of a neighborhood adjacent to a privately-owned sewage treatment plant located at 250 Roy Rd. SW, and 210 and 230 County Line Rd. SW, in the city of Pacific, Pierce County, Washington (the “Honey Bucket Facility”) [Figure 1].
Plaintiffs stated that hazardous odors, gases, fumes, and contaminants were being released from the Honey Bucket Facility at such frequency, intensity and duration as to 1) interfere with the use and enjoyment of their properties, 2) impair the value of their properties, and 3) cause adverse personal impacts such as annoyance, irritation, discomfort and other similar physical ailments.
EnviroComp’s Role
We were hired by the plaintiffs’ attorneys and asked to review all available documents and plaintiffs’ claims. We collected and examined all the meteorological data available in the region. Of the available sources we found that the KSEA weather station at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had the highest percentage of data availability among closest measuring stations [Figure 2]. Therefore, we used the wind data at this station in our subsequent meteorological analyses and compared the odor complaints from June 2015 to June 2018 with the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) 1-minute wind data collected at KSEA. The data sources for the complaints included those lodged with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (“PSCAA), the City of Pacific, and staff of the City of Pacific.
The defendants claimed that the Honey Bucket Facility did not cause objectionable off-site odors and that if class members were perceiving odors they must be coming from a different source or sources. To assist in evaluating the credence and credibility of class members odor complaints against the Honey Bucket Facility, we analyzed the complaints to ascertain whether or not the complaints showed meaningful correlation with meteorology, i.e., whether or not people in the Class filed odor complaints more frequently when the winds were blowing from the Honey Bucket Facility property toward them, creating conditions conducive to the transport of odors to class members.
Our meteorological analysis, using a wind rose methodology, identified a strong and very credible correlation between days/times of odor complaints and air flows directly aligned from the Honey Bucket facility to the Class Area. This correlation was very strong, and particularly evident when examining the contemporaneous odor impact maps prepared by the Community Development Manager of City of Pacific, Washington, who periodically visited the site and prepared hand-drawn odor maps based upon his evaluation of the area of odor impact. More details on our work and conclusions can be found in our Final Report.
As a result of our role and assignment, the plaintiffs’ attorneys were able to use our work to obtain a very substantial monetary settlement together with defendants’ agreement to improve operations at the Honey Bucket Facility.
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