MASON CITY – A not-so-pleasant aroma has invaded Mason City over the last 24 hours or so and continues to linger.
An NIT reader contacted us this morning about the obvious smell issue and asked us to try and find out what or where the smell was coming from.
We first reached out to the public to see what they had to say and if they had any ideas.
“I’m south of Roosevelt school & the smell has been coming & going for a couple of days – sometimes it is covered with the stench of Vi-Cor,” one woman said.
“It smells terrible out at Four Oaks (south of NIACC) – I almost don’t want to take the kids outside due to the stench,” said a man.
“Definitely makes it hard to want to keep the windows open,” still another woman offered.
“I think some one is pumping a hog confinement. That odor travels miles,” another man wrote.
We made a call out to the Mason City Water Reclamation (sewage) plant and they said all is normal there. City staff in general knew nothing of the smell until Neighborhood Services Manager Pat Otto seemed to get to the bottom of it.
“Jim Sberal (Code Enforcement Officer/Zoning Administrator) spoke to a farmer from the Portland area who said there is a cattle confinement building several miles south of Mason City; they are knifing manure into the fields.
So there you have it… manure in the fields.
As long as we are talking about complaining about smells, city hall’s Tricia Sandahl says that to the best of her knowledge, the city has not considered an “odor hotline” like Des Moines offers.
As long as they find an answer in a timely manner as they did today, might not need one. Thanks Pat for getting to the bottom of this, and Tricia for referring the matter to the right person.
As for the smell, it might linger awhile, as farmers are taking out crops and spreading the natural fertilizer and this will go on awhile.
Whiners Den this way————>
So farmers can make our city smell like poop for 2 days but you can’t burn certain items in a fire pit? Just when it’s nice enough to have the windows open our city smells like poo…. 🙁 Yuck Mason City, still proving you’re disgusting. Can’t wait to close on my house away from this.
It’s great how the first four quotes of this “story” have no names attributed to them. True journalism at it’s finest!
2,300 people saw these quotes and about 45 more just like them on our Facebook page. I didn’t feel adding the names was necessary. Is that OK? https://www.facebook.com/NorthIowaToday
Did you refer to that source anywhere in the article? Yes, it is necessary to site your sources when trying to pass something off as “news”; so no, it is not “OK.”
Facebook is not real life, I think you could probably work a little harder. You passed the quotes off like you were actually out gathering opinions. I would not take ANY of the comments on your stories and try to pass them off as news, why are you doing this from Facebook? At least attempt to provide credible news.
The iowa pork producers lobby bestowed this little treat upon you via their concubines. This crown jewel legislation is called the Iowa Master Matrix which is intended to protect the majority from this issue It has failed time and time again.
I swear all there is in Mason is cry babies and criminals
7:00 pm wed. the smell of hog was noticed at Southbridge Mall. So much for the Iowa pork producers crown jewel of legislation named the Master Matrix. Yet proven one more time… a joke
All I know is it smelled a hell of a lot better than VICOR!!!!
..it was coming from Bookmeyer’s office…
lol…he was lubing up his statues…lol
Or was attempting to move his deck all by himself and all his hot air escaped
Funny, all I smelled was manure from downtown. It smells of sucking money instead of making money but all in all, it still smells like shit.
Damn north end.
All the farmers do is cry:……….
My 9 year old grandson wanted me to go out on his deck with him last night. But first, he had to warn me “It stinks out here, Grandma. It’s been that way all day.” I knew right away what it was. I told him the farmers were just spreading manure on the fields and the smell was drifting into town. And now he knows the saying “it smells like money”. I’m a farm girl. You should have asked ME.