'The smell of death': residents of a California city have been suffering from a toxic stench for a month

The people of Carson, a city in the Los Angeles County, California, were gripped by real horror. An intolerable stench, dubbed the "smell of death," comes from a nearby canal where decaying vegetation is said to be releasing jets of hydrogen sulphide gas. Writes about it The Guardian.

Photo: Shutterstock

Carson City Council has declared a local state of emergency, but frustrated residents understand that it will take a long time to solve a problem that is not only inconvenient, but also has a negative impact on human health.

“It's not just a smell. People suffer from headaches, respiratory problems and rashes,” said Ana Meni, a Carson resident.

Lakesia Livingston suffers from health problems. When she walks in the evenings to fight high blood pressure, she returns home with severe headaches, fatigue, and sometimes nausea. She has lost her appetite and sleeps for 10 hours straight. Her symptoms worsened so much that Lakesia went to the doctor for a cure for nausea. The doctor said she would have to move if the symptoms persist.

The district is working to resolve the issue and says gas levels are starting to decline. They ventilate the canal known as the Dominguez Canal, inject oxygen into the water, and spray deodorant onto the canal to reduce the strength of the odor.

To date, the City of Carson, along with Los Angeles County, has relocated more than 1300 residents to hotel rooms. Meni said hundreds of other people fled the area at their own expense.

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The woman says it took her several days after she left Carson to realize how weakened her body was.

Meni is running for city council, and although elections are coming up, she describes the stench as "the smell of death" and a supply of "walking dead."

“They don’t give us clear answers - they just reduce the smell,” she is upset. “You might as well live next to a toxic landfill, and if you freeze it, the smell will go away, but it will still be toxic.”

Cleaning work

County officials say they were first notified of the foul odor emanating from the Dominguez Canal on October 7. The team found decaying material in the canal and brought in an emergency service.

“The water sampling shows that our efforts are paying off,” said Mark Pestrella, Los Angeles County public works director. “We are increasing volumes, achieving good results and seeing a trend towards reducing the content of hydrogen sulfide, which creates this odor.”

However, it is still not entirely clear what causes the persistent stench. Inspectors are investigating the possibility that an earthquake in mid-September shook something from an oil refinery in the area or other industrial facility.

Meni got very angry when she heard that the city authorities blame only nature for the smell.

"I've lived here 42 years and everyone says, 'We've never experienced this.' Please don't say it's nature. This cannot be,” Ana Meni is convinced.

Hydrogen sulfide, known as sewer gas, is colorless but pungent at low concentrations. It is extremely flammable and highly toxic, but Muntu David, a Los Angeles County health care provider, assured residents that the levels people breathe are too low to cause permanent damage.

According to him, the Environmental Protection Agency has determined: to be at risk of irreversible health effects, a person must be exposed to about 27 parts per billion in an hour or 000 parts per billion for eight hours in a row.

“Although some one-hour average air readings in open air sometimes reached as high as 7000 parts per billion, these levels were temporary and inconsistent, occurring primarily at night,” he said. “Over the course of the day, external readings drop steadily and have recently hovered around 1000 parts per billion or less.”

Why do people still get sick

But residents remain concerned. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health recently recommended that residents avoid prolonged outdoor activities between 21:00 p.m. and 08:00 a.m. and reduce exposure to strong odors. Schools in the area have been told to use their discretion when choosing outdoor activities, and residents have been told to keep their pets indoors.

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Carson is home to a predominantly non-white race, and residents feel the response to their crisis has not been as swift as other environmental concerns in the area, such as the recent oil spill at Huntington Beach, a prestigious beach area.

“I keep an eye on the spill in Huntington Beach because I walk there sometimes,” Livingston said. “Everything was decided in a week and a half.” But this canal is not as big as the beach. So why didn’t we get the resources we needed?”

In response to a question about residents' complaints about unfair distribution of resources, Kerjon Lee, public affairs manager for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, replies that response measures were taken by several departments and began immediately after the first report of the odor.

"We're focusing on bacteria that digest organic material inside the canal," Li explained.

Meni says areas where people of other races live tend to have minimal or no environmental policies. Lack of transparency and accountability left her with more questions than answers. “They assure us that the level is low, but our body says something else. Why are we still sick? "

She would like to go home, but decided to wait until the headaches stopped: "This is really scary, and we do not know how long this nightmare will last."

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