The city of Greeley has been waging war for 17 years with its smelly reputation. Thanks to Greeley has been able make great strides in eliminating several offenders and connected a 2011 spike in complaints to just one company.
The city has a perfect storm of ingredients that make it prone to stinky smells. It鈥檚 largely agricultural and has the dubious distinction of being surrounded by farmland, feedlots, and a meatpacking plant.
There鈥檚 also the city鈥檚 unique geography. Much of Greeley sits in a bowl. So when happen, air 鈥� and bad smells 鈥� settle in that bowl.
Sniffing Out Stinky Smells
Since the hotline was started in 1995, Greeley has gone from more than 600 complaints annually to just 25 last year. Throughout the decades, the front line of Greeley鈥檚 odor war has come in the form of descriptions left on the city鈥檚 tip line.
Tales of 鈥渙ld man breath,鈥� 鈥渂urnt chicken feathers,鈥� and 鈥渄ead rotting corpses set in rotting cheese then set on fire鈥� have been left on the hotline over the years.
Other, less sardonic descriptions include:
- "feedlot, road tar and stale water"
- "sweet smelling chemical like fertilizer"
- "like a bar serving poop in their food"
- "unsure how to describe but not a cow odor, maybe drugs"
- "bad sports shoes"
- "chicken coop"
- "sour milk"
- "wet goose feathers"
- "Downy"
City of Greeley Natural Resources Planner Karen Scopel says investigating odors can sometimes be complicated because people don鈥檛 know what they鈥檙e smelling.
鈥淧eople in our community may not be familiar with certain types of odors. So they might be smelling feedlot. But if they don鈥檛 know that鈥檚 a feedlot, they might have a fairly odd description of it because they鈥檙e trying to relate it to something they know.鈥�
For each call that comes in during regular business hours, a state-certified inspection officer is dispatched to the scene. These are trained workers who have taken a written and 鈥渟niff鈥� test.
Workers use tools to measure the severity of the smell鈥攃alled a . Scopel explains it looks like a radar gun that鈥檚 held up to your nose.
鈥淚t has a dial on it that you can adjust the amount of fresh air that goes through a carbon filter combined with the air that has an odor,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f we can still detect an odor when we diluted the odorous air with seven parts of fresh air, that could be a violation.鈥�
Those instances are pretty rare, Scopel says. The other way a company or entity can get a violation from the city is if there are three or more confirmed complaints in a specific time period.
After a spike in 2011, the city tracked many complaints to 鈥攁 meatpacking plant on the northeastern edge of town. Since then, the company has made changes to internal operations. This spring JBS USA will build a new $1.5 million smokestack to reduce smells even further.
鈥淧eople understand, we鈥檒l never be odor free,鈥� says Scopel. 鈥淏ut what we want to do is reduce the experiences of offensive odors as much as possible.鈥�
