What's That Smell? Sacramento, West Sacramento Officials Square Off

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- It might be hard to describe, but it's impossible to miss. People want to know: What's that smell?

The scent of fall is supposed to be settling in, but one sniff is all it takes. To some residents, there's more than fall in the air in Sacramento's Pocket area.

"It's kind of a strong sewage type smell," one resident says.

Sacramento City Council member Darrell Fong has been very determined to sniff out the cause, for his constituents, yes, but also for his own quality of life.

"We slept with the windows open at nighttime and the smell was so bad I thought we had a sewer leak in my house or my dog had an accident," Fong tells CBS13's Tony Lopez.

Talk about barking up the wrong tree. No, this smell isn't from a dog, cat or dumpster. So, Councilman Fong, any ideas?

"Now, could it be coming from the West Sacramento side? Yes, I believe with the Delta breeze, it carries it across the river," Fong says. "It may be coming from their detention basins or canals."

Not so fast, said West Sacramento Councilman Oscar Villegas.

"I got a courtesy call from Darrell," Villegas tells CBS13. "He said, 'Hey, you know what? I think it's coming from West Sacramento.' And I said, 'Well, you know what? I'm not so sure you're right about that.'"

West Sacramento even sent out crews at night to try to track down the source. Their conclusion? Neither city is to blame. Villegas says the smell is coming from the Yolo Bypass.

"Actually, it's a decomposing, organically derived vegetation that occurs in large-standing bodies of water," Villegas explains.

Villegas could be on to something. Officials confirm the same sort of thing is happening in the wetlands area off Highway 37 near Vallejo, where a restoration project is digging up vegetation that is hundreds of years old. They call it marsh gas, and they've been smelling it from Vallejo to Napa County.

Officials are guessing the same type of gas from the Yolo Bypass area is causing our local stench.

"If you think about the bypass, it actually runs all the way south of Clarksburg, so if there's something happening in that area, I could see how it could just sort of drift over the river," Villegas says.

So with that explanation, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon tweeted that he expects to hear from Sacramento ... or else.

"I am waiting for a private message clarifying/apologizing before launching nuclear missiles across the river," he joked in a tweet before tweeting again "all is good."