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stench, story not buried well
Updated 25 May 2007 10am: See clarification at the bottom of this post.
We got an email from Chamber of Commerce president Jennifer Fadal about the stench roaming around the Islands lately:
Hello Chamber Members. If you live, work or play on Davis Islands, you may have noticed an unpleasant odor during the past week or so. It seemed to move from place to place on the island as the wind changed.
Please know that this is NOT a major problem and was simply malfunctioning equipment at the city sewer plant. Thanks to Mark Paris from ReMax Reflections for looking in to this…
She includes a link to the story about the sewer plant malfunction on page two of Metro in Wednesday’s Tribune. The article quotes Tampa wastewater director Ralph Metcalf:
Sewage treatment employees waited until the end of the week to apply chemicals to cut the smell, Metcalf said. Residents started complaining as the smell hung heavy through Monday night.
“We should have done something before the people started complaining,” Metcalf said. “Frankly, we dropped the ball on that.”
I think Metcalf is talking about treating the stench quicker. He SHOULD be talking about communicating with the community.
The article doesn’t tell you is that residents who complained to the city got the runaround for a week.
A Davis Islands resident called the city about the stench late on Wednesday, May 14. John Peckett from the Tampa Wastewater Department called back on the 16th, and suggested “only 1 in a hundred people smell things,” that the resident was “the only complaint,” and often times people “blame the sewage treatment plant when it is the seaweed on Bayshore.” Pressed further, Peckett considered the source “might be the digester.”
It might be the digester.
Unsatisfied with that answer, (and still dealing with the horrible smell), he emailed the mayor directly on Monday the 21st. He got a response from Treatment Plant manager Phillip Clark on Tuesday:
I want to apologize for our lack of communications to you and for any inconveniences you and the residents of Davis Islands may have experienced last week due to the odor problem.
He goes on to explain the process that you’ve already read about in the Tribune piece, but also assures us that will “evaluate this process [Wednesday the 23th] and take further steps if necessary.” Clark also says we can call him directly, should we smell the foul odors in the future.
All of which is wonderful. Except it’s not.
In addition to the runaround, a local television reporter looking into it was told “off the record” that the city of Tampa had been “trying to keep this out of the news.” Huh? Keep it out of the news?
Someone screwed up - why not accept it, and explain to residents instead of trying to hide an odor so horrid, it can’t be covered? My six year old knows better.
A quick recap: The spill happened on Monday the 14th. On the 16th, Peckett mislead a city resident about the possible cause. Between then and the 22nd, at least one reporter was asked to keep the information out of the news. By the 22nd, enough people were asking questions that the Director of wastewater had to give the newspaper something, which was printed on the 23rd.
The story was buried by the city for ten days, and a reporter ignored it! Pardon the pun, but something smells funny here, and my gut tells me there is more to this.
Clarification: The TV reporter was told about this off the record on Tuesday, May 22. That TV station still does not have the report on their website.
