Did You Smell That? Yolo Bypass Blamed For Stench Across Sacramento
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A horrid stench descended across the region from West Sacrament to Downtown Sacramento. Even neighbors in Natomas were complaining, but nobody knew where it was coming from.
"It was horrible. It was nasty," said Ruben Galindo who first thought it was his newborn in the back seat.
But as the day heated up, the smell grew stronger.
"Smelling around thinking, is it my mom? Is it my girl? Is it me?" Galindo added.
Everyone we talked to was thinking the same thing.
"I get a whiff of it, then it kind of went away and that's when I'm saying, 'Maybe I stepped in something,'" said LaSalle Thompson, while at a meeting in West Sac.
Former NBA players Thompson and Mike Wiley said it's worse than a post-game locker room.
"Did you check the bottom of your shoe?"
"I did. I did actually. I said you must have stepped in something because it wasn't me," Thompson laughed.
Many tried to guess what was causing the awful odor.
"I was coming out of the doctor's office and I was like, 'What is that?' It smells like rotten cow manure," said Lorena Henderson who is getting out of town and heading back home.
So we asked, "What did it smell like?"
"It smelled like dog poop," Thompson said.
Could it be Fido?
"Maybe it's these plants?" he added.
CBS13 hit the phones and called around from the city manager's office in West Sacramento and the air quality managers in both cities and the verdict?
Something we've all driven across, some even daily, the Yolo Bypass.
It flooded this past winter and now experts say the leftover organic material is naturally breaking down once the water recedes.
So, the first real hot day ended up sending wafts of that rotting aroma across town.
Residents are relieved to hear it's just Mother Nature
"I knew it wasn't me. I was hoping it wasn't me. You know I had to double check real quick," Galindo laughed while sniffing his armpits.
Since it's an ecosystem problem we're just going to have to deal with the stink until it goes away.
Now, this isn't the first year people have complained about the smell.
The City of West Sacramento even has information on its website about the natural causes.
http://www.cityilights.org/2015/10/14/whats-that-smell/
