The county health department also said the releases prompted them to give 40 indoor air filters to a local high school and middle school.
Despite these concerns, county health officials say they do not plan to investigate whether the chemicals drifting from the facility have indeed made people sick.
“Based on the current detected levels of hydrogen sulfide, we do not believe there is a need to survey the community for symptoms of exposure,” Karl Fischer, spokesperson for Contra Costa Health Services, said in an email Thursday. “The detected levels are not immediately dangerous to public health, and we do not have evidence that people with acute symptoms related to this event are seeking medical care.”
Fisher emphasized that the agency’s role — and the purpose of its health advisory — is to notify people in the area of possible hydrogen sulfide exposure, the levels of it that have been detected, the potential symptoms people could experience, and how they can stay safe.
The agency says it has not seen an uptick in emergency room and ambulance activity.
But the odor had been present in the community for roughly a month before the county issued its advisory, Goodman said.
“We don’t know how long we had been exposed to who knows what,” she said.
Goodman, who lives a block away from the plant, has taped up her windows and vents. “No matter what we do, it just seeps inside,” she said.
She organized two town hall meetings in recent weeks in response to the odor, and says residents have complained of the kinds of symptoms county health officials say people can experience if exposed to hydrogen sulfide for extended periods of time: including headaches, nausea and burning eyes.
One resident told ABC 7 this week she has recently experienced nausea and brain fog, and said some of her friends have had nosebleeds.
Goodman, who said her 2-year-old daughter got sick in recent weeks from the odor, expressed frustration about how long the stench has been hitting the town.
“I have spent weeks trying to get ahold of somebody to do something,” she said, noting her efforts to contact both C&H and county officials. “It progressively got worse. It was very frustrating to have this happen for so long and not be able to get a resolution or to get somebody to help.”
“I’m really mad about it,” Gaunt Murdock, general manager of the Crockett Community Services District, told KQED earlier in the week. “We don’t deserve this.”
“It smells like excrement,” he added.
The treatment plant’s problems began in early September, when the Bay Area was slammed by a historic heat wave, according to Murdock. A compressor failed, causing the system that digests sewage in the plant to shut down. Weeks later, a power outage took place at the cogeneration plant that provides energy to the facility. Both incidents caused the strong odor to waft from the plant into downtown Crockett.
Because Crockett is unincorporated, it lacks a mayor, city council, police department and many other common local government institutions.
The ownership and operation of the wastewater plant is complicated. The community services district operates the sewer system that sends wastewater from homes and businesses into the facility. But C&H Sugar shares ownership of the plant with the district and has a majority stake in it. The sugar company’s contractor, Inframark, operates the facility.
“We pay C&H to handle the sewage. It’s not being handled well,” Murdock said.
Representatives for C&H say crews have been working hard to solve the problem. Inframark cleaned more than 1,300 air diffusers on Wednesday and plans to clean another round soon, according to Ashley Bauman, spokesperson for the company. That should help provide oxygen to microorganisms in the wastewater that break down the sewage, Bauman said.
The odor is expected to fully subside within seven to 10 days, according to the company, and residents should notice it easing before then.
Local air and state water regulators also are investigating the plant’s malfunctions.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District says it has issued 16 notices of violation against C&H in recent days. Agency staff have been in the area daily, patrolling the community and responding to complaints, according to agency spokesperson Ralph Borrmann.
"In the case of odor complaints in Crockett, I can generally say complainants have mentioned being sick due to the odor," Borrmann said in an email Friday.
He said agency staff have told residents who say they've become ill to contact the county health department.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board also is investigating whether the wastewater plant’s problems violate regional pollution regulations, said agency spokesperson Blair Robertson. The results of tests taken last week along the shoreline near the plant did not suggest any violations, and the agency is still awaiting test results from this week, Robertson said.
Between August 2009 and November 2019, the agency issued $514,000 in fines to C&H for releasing unauthorized amounts of pollutants into the bay.
