WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — Something stinks in Waterbury, and now, the city is spending $100,000 to get to the bottom of it.
Waterbury State Representative Geraldo Reyes said each summer, a foul stench grips the air in the South End of Waterbury. Residents are smelling it too.
“Anywhere you walk in this area you smell it,” said Nikki Gervis, who works at a car repair shop on South Main Street. “The whole street. It’s disgusting.”
She said the stench was so bad Friday morning that a man walking outside her auto repair shop was caught on surveillance cameras checking the bottom of his shoes.
“He thought it was poop or something,” she said. “It was that bad of a smell.”
Reyes said that poor quality has been a health concern for decades.
Reyes is pleased that the city is now giving the green light to a private firm to study what is happening. It is the same private firm the city hired a couple of years ago to manage Waterbury’s wastewater treatment plant after a raw sewage spill killed scores of fish in the Naugatuck River.
Representative Reyes said Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary is taking proactive steps to try and fix the problem.
“I would say it’s been ignored by previous administrations,” Reyes said. “But I will tell you that the mayor is doing a great job in the South End and he’s absolutely taking this stench problem head-on.”
