Fresh air is easy to take for granted until it carries the stench of human waste, chemicals and rotten eggs.
Some residents in Hampden Township, Cumberland County, say they live with these smells every week.
One woman who moved near the Hampden Township Wastewater Treatment plant on Roth Lane two years ago said she feels like she is being gassed at her home.
“I started to get dizzy, and I couldn’t figure out why,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from her rental company. “My migraines started getting worse. I ended up in urgent care with my whole face and neck covered in hives.”
Other neighbors describe waking up to the smells, which they described as “fishy” and “like a dead animal.”
“It would take your breath away,” said one man who frequently visits his girlfriend’s home on Roth Lane, located a few hundred yards from the treatment plant.
Several residents on or near Roth Lane said the odors have existed for years, growing worse in the evening.
“You can’t open your windows on a nice day,” another man said. “It smells like when you don’t flush the toilet.”
Several residents told PennLive they have lived with the foul smell since moving to the area, with one person dating the stink back to at least 2016.
The woman who went to urgent care said the smells have significantly decreased her quality of life, stripping her of simple pleasures like enjoying time outdoors or letting outside air in.
“I thought it’d be more affordable [living in Hampden Township] and I thought the fresh air would be good,” she said. “I haven’t been able to walk [outside] or open my windows in two years. It’s just awful.”
Township officials say they’ve taken steps to address the smell, including spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on remedies. They also believe the facility is among the best run of its kind in the region.
But residents say it’s still unbearable.
While some might assume the odors are worst in the summer months, when hot and muggy weather is prevalent, the woman who went to urgent care said that is not the case.
“We went for months where it was only 20 degrees out, and we were just choking on raw sewage,” she said.
The woman also said if she had an inkling of what she would have to live with, she never would have moved there. She believes rental companies near the treatment plant should be legally required to warn possible tenants.
There are hundreds of townhomes in at least four neighborhoods directly east of the plant.
“It’s so unfair, because residents don’t know until they’ve spent their money and moved,” she said.
One woman complained about the effect the smell has on walks in Creekview North Park, which adjoins the treatment plant.
“This facility makes the whole area smell like poop and old nasty pee at night. Not fun for a walk at the park. Can’t believe people have to live with this. Absolutely disgusting,” said Amber Paist in her one-star review.
“The worst managed plant in P.A. My entire neighborhood reeks of sewage every night,” a woman named Ann left with another one-star review.
The township responds
Opened in 1982, Hampden Township’s treatment plant can accept up to 5.69 million gallons of wastewater each day.
But the plant typically receives less than 3 million gallons each day after collecting wastewater for Hampden Township and Camp Hill, township officials told PennLive.
The Roth Lane entrance to the Hampden Township Wastewater Treatment plant.
Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.comJoe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.com
Township officials released the following statement to PennLive after being asked about the odors:
“Hampden Township takes sewer odor concerns seriously, and the Board of Commissioners and staff are aware that odors emanate from the plant from time to time. Residents’ concerns about odors have been raised at public Commissioner and Sewer Authority meetings, and Township staff have discussed the issue directly with residents who have made contact with the Township.
We understand that living near any wastewater treatment facility can involve unpleasant odors at time[s], and the Township continues to strive to further reduce odors emitted from the plant during the treatment process while continuing to maintain compliance with Department of Environmental Protection permit requirements.”
Hampden Township manager Keith Metts and assistant manager and director of public works, Jeremy Miller, said the Hampden Township Wastewater Treatment Plant is compliant with all state regulations.
Metts and Miller said roughly $500,000 in odor-reducing remedies were implemented after a township-commissioned “odor study” several years ago.
After the study, a $120,000 odor control system was installed at the treatment plant’s “headworks,” the first stop in the wastewater treatment process, Metts and Miller said.
Miller noted that first step could be one of the contributing factors to the smells, as the raw sewage has not yet been treated.
“The treatment process begins in an open wet well, exposed to the air,” Miller said. “So the extent that the raw sewage has any odor associated with it, before its treated, that could be where the smell is coming from.”
Ferrous sulfate, an odor-reducer, was also added to the treatment system, at a cost of about $100,000, alongside carbon filters on air relief valves.
Miller also said a new, “innovative” microbial technology is used at the treatment plant that involves adding pellets into the wastewater system to attack odor-producing microbiology.
Within the last year, a “sludge storage pad” that was previously open to the elements was enclosed, Miller added.
Miller said he has gone to the treatment plant within 30 minutes of receiving complaints from community members and could not find any odors.
The Roth Lane entrance to the Hampden Township Wastewater Treatment plant.
Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.comJoe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.com
Miller, who has a decade of experience in the wastewater treatment industry, had nothing but praise for the treatment plant.
“I would put Hampden Township’s wastewater treatment plant, the maintenance and condition of it, and the staff, equal to or above anyone in the area,” he said. “There is no plant in central Pennsylvania, eastern Pennsylvania or western Pennsylvania that is better operated than Roth Lane.”
