Business owners ask Malta City Council about lingering stench around downtown

During the new business portion of last Tuesday night's Malta City Council Meeting, two business owners located in the city's downtown wanted to talk about the phantom smell that continues to plague downtown businesses.

In April of last year the Malta Public Works team ignited smoke bombs and dropped them into downtown sewers and found some leaks in Malta business. The smoke bombs were the latest attempt to figure out how the foul order was making its way into the downtown businesses for at least the past three years.

On Tuesday night, Art's Furniture owner Art Lundstrom asked the City Council if there were more steps that could be taken to rid the area of the nasty odor.

"I don't think it has gotten any better," Lundstrom said. "They did that smoke test and we did have some smoke come up through the women's bathroom in the basement."

Lundstrom said after the smoke test that the bathroom in question was remodeled, the entire building was and the re-vented, plumbing was replaced, but the problems persist. Lundstrom said that shortly after the remodel, a customer came into his business and commented on the smell outside the building.

"She said she almost threw-up, it was so bad," he said, adding that the smell was even stronger on the building's roof later. Lundstrom asked if the City Council would look into having a professional sewer-jetter brought to town to flush the sewers downtown and have a camera operator run a camera through the troubled area.

"Somehow or another, I think the sewer is clogged," Lundstrom added. "It is just a terrible, horrible smell."

Malta Mayor Shyla Jones said that in the past the Public Works team has both jetted and run a camera through the troubled section and said she felt as though the smell isn't as bad as it was in April, though she admitted that there are sections of downtown where the smell is still prevalent.

"It is always bad under the underpass," Mayor Jones said. "I think that is the worst spot. So we had the Highway Department let us into the manholes to do some checking and our guys put some deodorant blocks in there but in two or three days the smell was back."

Mayor Jones said that she would make sure that the sewers in question are jetted-out again and said she would look into having Havre Public Works Department perhaps come to Malta to run another camera through the line.

Lundstrom admitted that the smell has gotten somewhat better, but said there needs to be a way to get the problem fixed. Mayor Jones said that three different engineers have examined the problem, to no avail.

"We have done a ton of tests to make sure none of our lines are leaking and none of them are," she said. "None of our mains are leaking, we have tested all of them. We are open to idea, but we have had three different engineers, we have had people from Rural Water, we have had people from sewer places, DEQ and they cannot figure it out."

RadioShack owner Eric Wilke said that he smells the order more back behind his business than inside and he thinks it'scurious that the smell comes and goes and some days are better than others. Mayor Jones said that as far as the Public Works Crew can tell, the smell's fluctuations coincide with the barometric pressure rising.

"When the barometric pressure gets high, that is when the odors are pushed down out of the atmosphere and that is when you are smelling them," she said. "We do know that for a fact and that's why you get it worse under the underpass because that is the lowest spot."

Mayor Jones said she would talk to DEQ again to see if they have any new thoughts on the problem and that she would contact Havre and ask about the possibility of having their camera crew take a look at the sewer line.

"We are still trying," she said.

In other council business, Mayor Jones informed the council that the Phillips County Community Needs Assessment meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 4 starting at 6 p.m. at Stretch's. Copies of the report can be obtained at Julianne Snedigar's office in the basement of the Malta Public Library.

Mayor Jones told the council that the city recently received a letter from the Phillips County Ambulance crew thanking the Public Works Crew for the job they have done this winter keeping the streets near their ambulance barn free of snow and ice.

Mayor Jones also told the board that she received a letter from Phillips County Extension Agent Marko Manoukian informing the council that Ag Day will be held on Friday, March 20 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the City Hall Gymnasium.

During the Department reports, Mayor Jones gave Public Work's Director James Brown's report as Brown was not able to attend the meeting because of sickness. She said that the Public Work's crew is running on a skeleton crew for the time being as a handful of workers are out sick or with injuries precluding them from work. Mayor Jones said that cardboard is piling up in the city shop and she and Clerk Lori Taylor are looking into ways to continue to move the cardboard out of town.