"Some people said it smelled like overwhelming flatulence. Others thought it was like rotten eggs or propane.While a pungent odor wafted through town a week ago Tuesday, some Valdez residents plugged their noses, called emergency responders, and pondered the cause of the mystery smell.
“It was really awful,” said Peggy Perales, official in charge of the National Weather Service Valdez. “I thought we had a gas leak but there’s no gas in the building … It smelled like someone left a very large tank of propane open.”
[...SNIP...]As it turns out, the stench was coming from discharged waste at the canneries, said George Keeney, fire chief. Hazmat personnel responded to reports of the smell throughout town and determined it was coming from gas produced by the outfall line at Peter Pan Seafoods. The fish waste is pumped into the bay, rots and then the stink drifts into town at low tide, Keeney said.
“At low tide it definitely smells,” he said.
[...SNIP...]
Cottle said the smell is from the methane gas produced from the decomposing fish guts."
Read the rest here, if you're still with me.
