After a Rocky Start, the Sweet Smell of Success

They may never fully understand the Mystery of the Rotten Egg Smell that enveloped the $200,000 homes overlooking Lake Hodges, even though some of the homes were smoke-bombed Wednesday by sewer specialists.

The odor plagued several homes on Buckskin Drive, at the top of the hillside Rancho Verde subdivision on the west side of town. One homeowner was so offended by the odor that he made a big stink at City Hall, saying the developer shouldn’t build any more homes until the problem was solved.

The builder, Pacific Standard of San Diego, admitted there was an odor problem during the summer, maybe because there wasn’t enough sewage being generated among the 99 homes built so far. The thought was that the pump station at the bottom of the hill wasn’t having to pump frequently enough to move the sewage along on its way, and the sewage was essentially stagnating as in a septic tank, busily brewing hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten egg.

The answer, the developer thought, would be the installation of a $20,000 air injector that pumps oxygen into the sewage, so hydrogen sulfide isn’t produced. The machine was installed two weeks ago, and that solved the odor problem in most homeowners’ minds and noses, apparently; Mary Lou Renckly, one of the offended homeowners, said the odor has since gone away.

Nonetheless, at the urging of one of the homeowners, the City Council last week told Pacific Standard to hold off on the second phase of new homes until the odor problem was better understood.

The question was whether there were leaks, holes or other problems in the sewer pipes that connect the homes with the main sewer line below the street, or perhaps leaks in the water traps or seals of toilets, sinks or bathtubs allowing sewer odors to enter the homes.

So on Wednesday morning, armed with smoke bombs, the builder tried to answer that question. It wasn’t easy.

The city’s sewer crew knows, in theory, how to check the integrity of sewer lines by dropping a smoke bomb into a sewer. If the sewer system works as it should, the smoke will escape through the rooftop vents of the homes served by that sewer. If smoke seeps up through the front yard rose garden, through a toilet seal or up the kitchen drain, you know you’ve got problems.

The problem on Wednesday, however, was that the city hadn’t ever conducted such a test. And the smoke bombs had been sitting around for six years or longer. They were duds. Try and try again, they wouldn’t light.

Finally, one of the 15-inch-long sticks was broken open and placed in a plastic bucket, its powder spilling out. A match was put to it, and it smoked gloriously. Workers cheered. The smoking bucket was lowered through the manhole cover and--in seconds--smoke began pouring out of the rooftop vents and nowhere else. Workers walked through three houses to look and smell for the telltale smoke, and there was none.

The sewer system was pronounced healthy by Carl Lane, the city’s sewer maintenance supervisor, so it remains unclear just how the odor may have escaped the system and settled along Buckskin Drive in recent months.

Scott Greer, project superintendent for Standard Pacific, seemed pleased by Wednesday’s test and indicated that the builder may return to the City Council next Wednesday for permission to continue building the 243-home subdivision.

Then a whole lot of smoke suddenly poured out of the manhole. The plastic bucket, still in the manhole, had caught fire. The fire quickly was put out.

But nobody yelled: “Fire in the hole!”