"Phantom Smell" detected into downtown buildings

At least some of the "phantom smells" that have pestered business owners in downtown Malta were sniffed out by John Demarais and the Public Works team last week with the assistance of smoke bombs.

"We found four businesses that had leaks inside their buildings," said Demarais. "And then we found one vent on a building with a little hole, but we don't know if that had anything to do with it, but that is what we came up with."

On Wednesday, Demarais and crew lit smoke bombs and dropped them down into the sewers in the proximity of where the smell complaints had been made over the past three years. The smoke bombs followed numerous attempts at locating the foul stench, attempts which included gas sniffers and video cameras.

"We are going to use the smoke bombs one more time," he said. "It will probably be within the next 10 days because we have to get some more bombs."

Since the leaks were found inside businesses, the shift of fixing the problem shifts from the town to the private building owners.

"There is nothing wrong with our sewer system or our storm drain system," said Demarais. "There are no leaks in them, they are all inside public buildings. This is making me feel reasonable good."

In other public works related news, Demarais gave reports at the recent Malta City Council meeting which included restroom overhauls and gopher problems.

"We ripped the guts out of the bathrooms at Trafton Park and put new stuff in," he said. "I think that was built in the 60's and it was starting to look its age, so we put in new fixtures."

At Riverview Park, Public Works will soon be putting in traps around new planted trees to combat a gopher problem in the area (Northwestern Energy gave a grant last year for the planting of the new trees at the park.)

"We will see if we can't alleviate that problem," said Demarais.