ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFTS) — For the people living in Maximo Moorings, all they want is a breath of fresh air.
Imagine walking out of your door and being hit with a nauseating stench.
That's a reality for the people in Maximo Moorings.
It wasn't the neighborhood welcome Dawn Wightman expected.
"I wasn't aware that moving in here that this was a thing. Never. It was never disclosed or anything. In hindsight, I probably would have never bought my house. And I love my house," she said.
Just across the street sits the Southwest Water Reclamation Plant.
"We'll be relaxing in the pool, and all of a sudden, the wind will switch. And the minute the wind switches, there it is. We're going in the house. So when we have company over, we can't even go outside because of the smell. You know, it's embarrassing," she said.
Wightman isn't the only person finding herself going indoors more. The smell of sewage and more put a wrench in neighbor Jennifer DiGiacinto's New Year's Day plans.
"Just New Year's Day, we were having a bottle of champagne, and my guests and I were overcome with the hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, very strong ammonia smell where our eyes were watering. And our throat, it was making us cough, and we had to go in the house. That was it. That was a wrap," DiGiacinto said.
She said the smell is inescapable.
"I'm smelling it at least four or five times a week in my home, in my backyard, by my pool."
In 2018, we told you how the city installednew misting diffusers at the plant, filling the air with essential oils. Yet, five years later, the people across the street said it still reeks of rotten eggs, sewage, and even ammonia.
Bill Mellon has lived in the neighborhood since the late 80s. He said those essential oils were more inessential.
"It's the same thing that we would spray in our house to just cover the smell, but the smell is not going away," he said.
As the stink persists throughout the community, neighbors like Rosalyn King said that's starting to smell like a health concern.
"The stench of the odor from the plant is so strong, that if we want to be in our yards at all, doing any work in our yards, when that odor is like that, we need to be masked up to protect ourselves and our health," she said, clinging to her mask.
The home in Maximo Moorings has been in King's family for about 50 years. She said she doesn't want to let it go, but the growing issue is concerning.
"From everything that I have learned, everywhere people are impacted. There are devastating results on health, on respiratory problems, on allergies, on neurological problems, including dementia, and on cancers and the like. And so we are very concerned because we feel like we are being the pawns in the situation. And it's not being corrected, and it has gotten worse," King said.
No one from the city had time to do an interview despite repeated requests from ABC Action News. The city did provide this letter that went out to the people in Maximo Moorings last week. The letter said they continue to work on fixes for three potential sources of the smell, including an odor control system slated to wrap up this winter.
It also explains how the city installed deodorizer blocks in the neighborhood manholes. The plan is to switch them out every four months.
Wightman doesn't feel like those will help.
"I literally was yelling when they changed my manhole. It was open for an hour, and I looked at the workers and said, 'Do you smell anything? I don't smell anything coming out. You're right above it. Do you smell it?' That's not going to do anything. It's not where it's coming from. You can see it's coming from over there. Well, not see, but you can smell," said Wightman.
Community members believe the plant is working even harder since the one downtown closed, now pumping even more sewage from the population growth we've seen happening in the downtown area.
"I don't think they imagined how many more apartments they were going to be building down there, creating more sewage, wastewater," said Mellon.
The group of neighbors, now bonded over a shared repulsion from the smell outside, say they won't stop until the city does something that will actually allow them to breathe fresh air.
"They need to cover those tanks. And a lot of communities cover those tanks. But they don't want to do it," he added.
ABC Action News will stay on top of this issue to find out what city leaders can do to clear the air and when neighbors can expect some relief.
The people here encourage anyone who smells the stench to report it to the city, Nextdoor, or SeeClickFix.
