With warm weather fast approaching, officials are trying to tackle the long notorious odor emanating from the Allegheny Valley Joint Sewage Authority treatment plant.
Half a mile across the Allegheny River from the treatment plant in Harmar, Oakmont residents have long griped about the smell wafting from the plant.
State Rep. Joe McAndrew, D-Penn Hills, said he receives phone calls regularly from constituents complaining about the odor.
“They’ve had a bit of a smell issue since I was a kid,” McAndrew said.
He said people could smell the plant when driving past or coming over the Hulton Bridge.
The odor has gotten stronger and more widespread since a federally mandated expansion project to control discharges of sewage and stormwater into the Allegheny River began in 2022.
The authority is expanding its sewage treatment capacity from 5.5 million gallons daily to 8 million gallons daily.
The work originally was supposed to be completed in 2023, and then again last year.
As of this month, the project still isn’t finished.
Allegheny Valley Joint Sewage Authority officials did not respond to multiple TribLive interview requests.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency mandated the treatment plant upgrade as part of a nationwide effort to prevent raw sewage overflows and inadequately controlled stormwater that discharges into rivers, streams, lakes and other waterways.
According to Laina Aquiline, regional communications manager for the state Department of Environmental Protection, the project at Allegheny Valley started after a 2014 consent order with the DEP and Allegheny County Health Department. The order required two tasks: the treatment plant expansion and proposal, and implementation of an odor control plan.
“The odor control plan that (Allegheny Valley Joint Sewage Authority) implemented has not adequately addressed the odors that continue to emanate into the community,” Aquiline said in an email.
Following a walkthrough of the plant last October, the DEP’s Clean Water Program sent a list of requirements to the treatment plant in February to manage the smell. It blamed the odor on hydrogen sulfide forming in the conveyance system.
“DEP has directed (Allegheny Valley) to conduct monthly sampling of hydrogen sulfide at the treatment plant and at its pump stations,” Aquiline said.
She said Allegheny Valley and the DEP are detecting elevated hydrogen sulfide levels at the treatment plant from sewage entering the plant.
“When sewage sits in a conveyance system for extended time, it goes septic,” Aquiline said. “The AVJSA system has long conveyance lines leading to the plant. Septic sewage creates hydrogen sulfide, which has a characteristic rotten egg odor.”
The letter asks the sewage treatment plant to come up with a plan to address the issue by the end of April.
Aquiline said, despite the expansion being “nearly complete,” the work does not address the root cause of the smell. She did not provide an exact timeline of the expansion project’s completion.
The treatment plant is expected to seek water quality permits within two months of the control plan’s approval.
Within a month after that, the plant is expected to have construction bids for hydrogen sulfide control systems to be installed.
The typical solution, Aquiline said, is to inject a treatment chemical at pump stations to prevent hydrogen sulfide formation in the conveyance lines to the plant. She said this would be paid for by the plant.
“The addition of an odor control chemical prevents the formation of hydrogen sulfide in the sewage,” Aquiline said.
McAndrew said he has been communicating with the treatment plant regularly about the odor since his election in 2023. Delays and complications from the project are the latest reasons he has been given for the smell lasting this long, he said.
“At this point, all the parts they said were back-ordered should be in place. Everything should be complete in terms of construction,” McAndrew said. “That worsening smell is continuing to persist.”
He said he has been in contact with the DEP since 2023 to get a handle on the odor. He believes residents’ continuous requests for a solution were a driving force in the DEP’s involvement.
“The community continually expressing their concerns pushes the DEP to investigate further,” McAndrew said.
The plant serves Cheswick, Fox Chapel, Harmar, Hampton, Indiana Township, Richland, Springdale, Springdale Township and West Deer.
