Hey, good news for nostrils! Apparently, the city doesn't smell as bad as it used to, or at least, people aren't complaining about that raw sewage stench so much.
The Department of Environmental Protection, which run's the city's water supply and keeps track of sewage-related odor complaints, says 311 received the lowest-ever number of rotten smell complaints this summer. They only received 73 complaints from June to September, down a whopping 80 percent from 2007's off-the-charts-smelly summer, which lead to 375 complaints. The decline, a DEP spokesman said, is because “We have invested millions in odor control technologies, and it appears that it is paying off.”
The areas garnering the most odor complaints this summer were, perhaps unsurprisingly, near the Owl's Head sewage plant in Bay Ridge, the Coney Island plant in Sheepshead Bay, and the North River plant in Upper Manhattan (you know, the one that exploded poop all over the Hudson earlier this summer). On the other hand, the Newtown Creek plant in Greenpoint dropped from 151 complaints to a measly four, which means it's perfectly safe to go fishing for crabs with used condoms there. Just keep an eye nose out for other offensive odors around the city, including (but not limited to!) ginko trees, dead rats, and putrid puddles.
