Four Years Later, New York Mystery Stench Persists

It’s been over four years since the city of Bay Ridge, New York, spent $6.9 million to connect sewer lines along the Fort Hamilton Parkway in 2006, and more than four years of failed investigations into the mysterious rotten-egg stench which began wafting from the grates. Residents claim that the stink is so bad (some likening it to the smell of decomposing corpses) that it permeates the walls of their homes, and some have even moved away. “If you walk by, you’ll gag — that’s how bad it is,” said Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann. Despite repeated counter-stink measures by the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Design and Construction — including nylon socks stuffed with pine-scented deodorizer that city workers dropped into the sewers in 2007 — the mystery stench persists.

This month, city officials ponied up the bucks to hire Webster Environmental Associates, which specializes in monitoring air and water flow from sewers, in hopes of finally isolating the source of the smell. “The odor is affecting residents’ quality of life all and despite city agencies’ best efforts, the cause is a mystery,” said Councilman Vince Gentile, who pushed for city funding to hire the inspectors from Webster. “It’s high time that the nuisance is taken care of.”