SANFORD, Fla. – If you live in or visit Sanford, and you’ve noticed a certain smell in recent weeks, you’re not the only one. Our News 6 team noticed the complaints and comments online from people wanting to know: what’s that stink in Sanford?
Antonio Echavarria lives south of 1st Street, near the downtown area, the riverwalk, and the hospital. He just moved to the area a few months ago and said he didn’t notice any foul odor until now.
“It’s almost every day, all the time,” said Echavarria. “The smell, it’s terrible.”
Echavarria told our News 6 team Monday that he and his wife wouldn’t have bought this home to move to Florida and retire if they had known about the smell.
“From 1 to 10, it’s a nine and half. Serious,” Echavarria said when describing the smell. “I’m 76 years old. I don’t want this.”
Our News 6 team spoke to several people in the area who said the smell comes and goes depending on which way the wind is blowing. Some describe it like raw sewage.
“It can make you sick to the stomach,” said Steve Singleton. “You can smell it from like a mile or two down the road.”
Sanford Mayor Art Woodruff is aware it’s a problem. He tells News 6 the odor is likely coming from the sewage treatment plant near Lake Monroe.
“We’ve got two odor control units that are supposed to be working there. One of them was just replaced,” said Mayor Woodruff. “We had been having trouble, and it got replaced and operating just at the end of August. And that is the one at what’s called the head works. That’s where the sewage comes in.”
The mayor said the city is working to fix multiple equipment failures right now, including another odor control unit in the main part of the plant. The repairs take money and time to complete.
“It’s not as simple as ‘just go and buy a new one,’” Woodruff said. “It has to be manufactured, and so it takes 6 to 8 weeks to build one. We’ve got the order in, and as soon as it comes in, we’ll put that in.”
Woodruff said he just recently discovered that another part, the solar dryer, which draws moisture out, has been down for a while. He said a contractor should be on site Oct. 6 to make repairs. He hopes by November, everything will be back up and running as usual.
“We’re looking into what happened with that,” said Woodruff. “Some of the engineering firms that we’ve worked with may have made things sound rosier than they really were. But really, it’s our new public works director that has really gotten in there and is really looking to see what’s wrong, what needs to be fixed, and how does it need to be fixed.”
Woodruff says the city has about a dozen ongoing projects at the plant right now, and their goal is to be more proactive about maintenance.
In July, News 6 reported on new lift stations that were being installed near Hollerbach’s German Restaurant and the Brewlando as the city catches up on deferred maintenance issues that have caused problems in the past. During Hurricane Ian, the valves that make the sewage treatment plant operate were completely submerged, which stopped it from working. That storm was a worst-case scenario for Sanford’s sewer lines, but the city says the Utilities Department has been working to address recurring issues.
This summer, Woodruff said the system went down just as the weather was shifting, which can result in stronger smells anyway.
When asked if the odor will be addressed in the long term, the mayor said they have talked about trying to move the plant to another location.
“When you look at that, it’s like, ‘Why would you put that on the lake front?’ Because that’s where all the pipes went when the plant was built,” said Woodruff. “I mean, the sewage used to go straight into there like there was no sewage treatment plant. And so, when we built the plant back in the 70s, I believe 60s or 70s, that’s where all the pipes went, and so that’s where the plant had to go.”
The city would also need to keep the older plant operating while it finds the money and location for the new facility and then figure out how to shift all of the pipes there. It would be complex and costly.
“We’re always going to have some odor. We can control it, and we need to do a better job of that and be more proactive,” Woodruff said.