MOUNT DORA, Fla. – The City of Mount Dora will discuss two items related to its Wastewater Treatment Facilities at the council’s Tuesday night meeting.
The facility off of Highway 441 has been at the center of an ongoing mystery in Mount Dora. Some believe it’s causing a stinky smell in certain areas and people who live nearby want to get to the bottom of it.
While the treatment facility is in Mount Dora, the smell is also reaching into parts of Orange County.
Linda Bramer has lived in the area for 16 years and believes the smell is caused by the Wastewater Treatment Facility.
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“You can’t miss it,” Bramer said. “I mean, if you just drive up the road, there have been times where I have been driving by with my windows up, and the smell is so strong in my car, it makes my eyes water.”
Even though Bramer lives in Orange County in close proximity to Mount Dora, she said she is still impacted by the smell and said it has only gotten worse.
“I just know we’ve been fighting this for four years,” Bramer said. “Something needs to be done sooner rather than later. And especially, you know, you have people who have small children. The kids are covering their noses and their mouths at the bus stops because the smell is so bad.”
According to a third-quarter report from the firm conducting the city’s odor study, Kimley-Horn, preliminary indications show there has not been enough information to support a correlation that the facility odors are traveling to residents.
Part of the study also includes a toll-free line for residents to call and report the smell. During the third quarter, the report said there were 846 recorded odor event observations made by 258 residents.
Kitty Breed is one of those residents who called.
“I feel like I am giving my whole life to this smell,” Breed said. “I run a Facebook page, I am constantly advising people on how to get in touch with people to make complaints, constantly talking to people, and there’s times that it takes up my whole day. I don’t work right now except at home, so I have the time to do it, but I resent that, and I want it fixed.”
The city said it is waiting on the findings from the fourth-quarter report of the odor study to have a full picture to move forward with the next steps.
Those findings should be available in the coming weeks.
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