Something wicked this way smells

June Casagrande

At times, it’s so noxious, you can light it with a match.

For half a century, a stench has plagued this otherwise pleasant

little village. The intersection of Washington Street and Bay Avenue

has reeked off and on for at least 50 years with what Public Works

Director Steve Badum calls a “sulfur smell.”

City officials aren’t sure where or what, exactly, the smell is

coming from. But they’re confident it’s the result of some kind of

organic matter rotting underground. It’s harmless, they say, but

awfully unpleasant and even flammable in high concentrations. And

it’s unpredictable. Sometimes the stink seems to come in with the

tides, other times the weather seems like the biggest factor.

“We know it’s methane,” City Councilman Tod Ridgeway said. “We

don’t know if it’s from decomposed shells, old oil fields. We don’t

know what it is, but we know we can put in an underground system to

capture it.”

Ridgeway wants to capture it and run it up the flagpole --

literally. The councilman, whose district includes Balboa Village,

hopes to hurry along a program that will capture the gas underground

and then vent it into the sky using a hollow flagpole that would be

installed at the end of Washington Street right at the boardwalk.

Cost of installing the underground system: about $200,000.

Enjoying a sandwich at a village restaurant free from the suffocating

stench: priceless.

“It can be quite ripe at times, just like a rotten egg smell,”

said Jim Fournier, a longtime local who remembers seeing the gas

bubble up from the mud when workers were laying the foundation for

the new Balboa Fun Zone. “The locals have pretty much gotten used to

it, but tourists are often pretty offended.”

Fournier and others say the smell hasn’t been as bad lately, but

if history is a guide, it will be back.

Balboa Island has already been successful with the solution

planned for the village: The flagpole at Balboa Island’s fire station

takes stink from underground -- right under people’s noses -- and

spews it high into the sky.

The work is tentatively planned as part of Phase 3 of Balboa

Village improvements, but Ridgeway doesn’t want to wait that long.

Ridgeway is lobbying for funding as part of the city’s budget, under

the capital improvements program, instead of waiting for the 2004-05

budget that’s likely to fund all of the Phase 3 improvements. Either

way, it will probably come from general fund money.

“People think it’s a sewer smell, but it’s just Mother Nature,”

said Gay Wassall-Kelly, Peninsula resident and community activist.

“Hopefully, the odor will soon be ventilated over our heads and it

will be dissipated into the air.”

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

[email protected].