Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
MIDWAY — Residents bordering the Heber Valley wastewater lagoons — over 40 acres of ponds filled with treated sewage — say they're holding their breath, anticipating the nefarious smells emitted from the area annually in springtime, after an especially odorous year left nearby residents worried.
"When I bought a lot, I knew I would have some smell. But I love the view. I love the quiet. I love the community. I thought that if I had to smell this for a couple days every year I could deal with that," Cami Bingham, a resident in the affected neighborhoods since 2014, said.
But she says the odor has gotten progressively worse over the years and has become present much more frequently.
It's not just the smell, residents insisted, affecting those within the victinity of the Heber Valley Special Service District's lagoons.
Residents commission survey
The neighborhoods completed a survey of the health effects they believe can be attributed to their proximity to the water. "Three members of my family came down with flu-like symptoms as soon as we started smelling the sewage," one respondent said.
Another claimed they had two instances of rare bacterial infections. Many said their mental health, quality of life, and ability to sleep has been significantly impacted.
An ear, nose and throat doctor who worked in the area, Brian Tagge, wrote a letter to the Heber Valley Special Service District saying that the aerosols from the sewage "pose a problem for inhabitants in the surrounding areas, causing these illnesses that I see in my office," including sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, bronchitis and pneumonitis.
The residents sent their survey of health concerns and other letters of concern to the county health department and the special service district, leading to the commission of a study testing air quality around the facility and neighborhood by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. On Feb. 27, around 30 residents packed a public hearing to express their concerns while the state scientists gathered information.
The community health assessment is the first of its kind for the department of health, according to board members. State epidemiologists started a website to gather complaint reports in an effort to understand the issue better. They did not have the monitoring equipment and instead asked the district to rent the extremely sensitive monitoring equipment. After the study is conducted, the health department will produce a report, though no timetable has been provided yet.
District seeking protections from lawsuit
"We want to be good neighbors; that's our primary goal," Heber Valley Special Service District spokeswoman Janet Carson said. "Anytime we hear about a health concern, we want to be as proactive as possible."
A spokesperson from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality said the district is currently in compliance with its permit, and there have been no major violations.
In response to the complaints, however, the district is working with legal counsel and plans to submit applications to the county, hoping to convert the lagoons and surrounding farmland into an industrial and agricultural protection area. That would effectively protect the district from any nuisance claims and litigation that arise due to the smell, as well as any future regulation of the lagoons.
Board members gave the go-ahead Thursday night to submit an application to Wasatch County for an industrial protection area, though the contents of that application are yet to be revealed to the public.
According to state code, "the use and enjoyment" of the property owned by residents within the area would be "expressly conditioned on acceptance of any annoyance or inconvenience which may result from such normal industrial uses and activities," giving industrial activities "the highest priority use status."
It would effectively protect the district from legal action due to nuisances caused by the district's industrial activity, including the smell emanating from the lagoons.
The district is also in the process of applying for an agricultural protection area, which applies to the farmland owned by the waste water district. It uses treated wastewater to grow hay and sell at auction in the community, according to Carson. The same protections apply to industrial and agricultural zones, preventing the public from suing the district for nuisances like the smell of refuse being sprayed on fields.
Attorney Malin Moench said in order to create the proposed area, an approval has to come from both a majority of the landowners affected and those holding a majority of the land. An additional approval would have to come from Wasatch County. To get around the required approvals from the residents, Moench expects the special service district to draw the area tightly around only the land it owns.
The protected area would tie the hands of the residents and the county if approved, Moench said, preventing any legislative body from passing new regulations restricting the protected industrial use.
There is a caveat. These protections under Utah Code exclude any claim that "bears a direct relationship to public health or safety," so the Department of Health study, now in an information-gathering phase, will have long-ranging implications on residents' ability to complain about the fecal stench in the future.
For either of the proposed area protections to be approved, the district will have to notify affected households, hold a public hearing and receive public input.
Managers seeking to mitigate smell
Jim Goodley was hired this month as the new Heber Valley Special Service District general manager. He brought numerous concerns to his first board meeting Thursday night in an effort to reduce the facility's odor impacts over the long run.
In the spring and fall, wastewater lagoons undergo a "turning over." The normally stable layers of water, with cooler water settled on the bottom and warmer on top, undergo a mixing as the change in ambient temperature causes instability in the column. When this happens, settled solid waste churns, and trapped gases are released.
Multiple factors are theorized to have contributed to the worsening of odor last year, said Carson, including increased water levels from the record-breaking winter, the fact that the surface of the lagoons froze over, and one of Goodley's concerns — the 40-year-old aeration system at the bottom of the lagoons is failing, and the ponds now have a large unoxygenated "dead zone."
He is looking into options to repair or completely replace the system to improve the chemical breakdown of the waste. "If we can get air in there," Goodley said, "the less the possibility of odors."
At the board meeting, Goodley proposed numerous other projects to help with the smell over the long term, with some already being implemented. The district hired consultants in June 2023 who recommended a treatment system to dose the lagoons with hydrogen peroxide and calcium nitrate as a kind of Band-Aid solution for the turnover period. Goodley said they recently tested that system and will be starting to spray 15 gallons a day of solution into the lagoons beginning in the next week or two to get ahead of the turnover period.
The underlying problem, literally, is the 4 feet of 40-year-old sludge at the bottom of these ponds, according to Goodley. He suggested this solid material should be dredged and deposited off-site, a costly project, estimated at at least $5 million. While it would reduce odors in the long term, Goodley says that, still, "There's gonna be odors, no two ways about it."
Another project underway to replace the headwater filter screens in the wastewater plant requires all flow to be diverted into the lagoons for an estimated six months, which will cost around $1.7 million. The end result will allow the service district to increase the plant's capacity, ultimately giving it the ability to treat the wastewater more effectively before it gets to the ponds.
Bingham said she and many of her neighbors do not mind the short-term increase in bad odors if it improves the situation. "Any time you meddle with the sludge, there's going to be smell," she said, as long as the projects are clearly communicated to neighbors.
Whatever project the district undertakes, board members expressed a strong desire to put industrial and agricultural protections in place before creating more odors during improvements.
