Officials are looking into the source of the smell that has wafted through downtown Hattiesburg in recent days and weeks, especially during the morning hours of 7-10 a.m.
Mayor Toby Barker said he and his staff have reached out several times to officials from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality to pinpoint the source of the odor, and will continue to work with the Water and Sewer Department to rectify the situation. Barker said by all accounts, the city’s sewer lagoons – which caused a raft of problems during the previous administration – are functioning within limits.
“Each of the last two weeks, we’ve had people on site multiple times with our water and sewer employees, trying to track down the source,” Barker said. “All signs point to our lagoons functioning properly.”
City officials continue to communicate with MDEQ for every “smell event” that is reported.
“Our delegation is helping those conversations along.
“We are reaching out to and visiting with our industrial employers to see if we can’t find the source through those avenues.”
Back in 2016, Hattiesburg City Council members went back and forth on methods to get the city’s lagoons – which are located off East Hardy Street near the Leaf River – in compliance with permit levels established in August 2015 by MDEQ. However, a few months after that – when the south lagoon met permit levels for about a year – officials were able to continue using the lagoons rather than having to build a new system.
