A highly unpleasant odor that has been lurking around part of the Base Village plaza for a month has been dealt with successfully, according to a Related WestPac employee.
Several people passing through Base Village noticed, as early as January, a strong unpleasant smell that appeared to come from a storm drain in front of the Treehouse children’s center. More than one person described it as smelling like raw sewage, being stronger in warm weather and issuing from near that particular grate.
Concerns that sewage was getting into Brush Creek were relayed to town, county and state officials recently.
An Aspen Skiing Co. employee notified Related WestPac about the odor a month ago, and it took a few days to get the water testers out, said Mak Keeling, land development manager for WestPac.
“We determined that we needed to get professional stormwater quality consultants out here to take samples of water,” said Keeling, adding that the smell was “not something good at all.”
Keeling received the test results 10 days later, in mid-March, and was relieved to find that the culprit was stormwater, rather than grease or excrement.
The odor was traced to a water-quality reservoir that collects all of the runoff from Base Village and Fanny Hill into one 11,000-gallon vault, where water is separated from solids three times. The water is then flushed into Brush Creek, while the solids settle at the bottom of the tank.
“It is to be expected that conditions in the vault would produce noxious odors,” read a summary by E. Robert Weiner, Ph.D., with Wright Water Engineers in Denver. “The vault was reported to contain standing water and organic debris, conditions that inevitably produce anaerobic conditions in the water.
“Anaerobic conditions mean that the water is depleted of oxygen. It also is likely that animal intestinal wastes entered the vault in storm runoff, or from small animals seeking shelter in the vault. Under anaerobic conditions, which can also occur in sewage lines, bacterial decay processes produce methane, hydrogen sulfide gas, and other odoriferous substances.”
A storm prevented a hired crew from pumping out the vault the day after the test results arrived, so the task had to be rescheduled for March 20.
Keeling, who was present when the vault was opened, described what he saw as “the same kind of black stuff you see at the bottom of a beaver pond. It was awful.” He adde d that a mild smell seemed to linger for a couple of days afterwards, but he has not received any complaints this week.
The vault is supposed to be emptied and cleaned twice a year, but the consultants estimated that that had not been done for at least a year. Keeling said he billed the contractor responsible for the oversight for the work related to the incident.
“That’s the most heavily traveled area of Base Village. I’m not proud of what happened; it’s just a growing pain, I guess,” he said.
Adding to the problem was some confusion as to who has authority over sewage or stormwater treatment. Town of Snowmass Village Public Works Director Hunt Walker received several calls about the smell and met with Keeling at the site, but said he doesn’t believe monitoring maintenance of the vault is under his purview. “I’m not sure who is responsible for private storm sewers that may have public health issues,” he said.
Pitkin County’s environmental health department also received complaints earlier this week, but a staffer there explained that the problem isn’t in the health department’s jurisdiction. As a courtesy, the department contacted the town manager, and after receiving a subsequent complaint, passed it along to the state’s water quality control division.
lutz@aspendailynews.com
