Odors from Intel ponds stink up area

Carl Cunningham believed he was free from foul smells wafting toward his house in southeast Chandler when a dairy farm across the street closed a few years ago.

The air still stinks, however, and the odor, which is characteristic of rotten eggs, comes from the opposite direction.

"It's so bad you can't even go outside," Cunningham said. "It's just a suffocating smell."

The source of the odor is hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas, in four city-owned ponds south of his subdivision at Ocotillo and Gilbert roads. The ponds are used to hold water left over from Intel's chip manufacturing.

Cunningham and his next-door neighbor, Bill Berryman, are trying to organize their neighbors in the 243-home Fonte al Sol development to figure out a solution to the problem.

They have called a neighborhood meeting for Tuesday to discuss their options, some of which could be hiring a lawyer or an expert to conduct air monitoring to determine whether there is any health risk.

Cunningham and Berryman, who emphasized that they weren't speaking for the neighborhood, said they are frustrated with the efforts of the city so far and they are worried their health and property values could suffer if there isn't a permanent fix.

The city keeps doing "Band-Aid things," Cunningham said.

Cunningham, who moved in 3 1/2 years ago, said he began to notice the rotten-egg odor about two years ago right after the dairy left.

The ponds are also a source of midge flies, which Cunningham said are a nuisance in the first few rows of houses that border the ponds.

He said the flies swarm and cover the surface of swimming pools and screen doors.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's Web site, exposure to low concentrations of hydrogen sulfide may cause eye, nose and throat irritation, and affect the breathing of asthmatics.

High concentrations can knock out or kill someone.

Berryman said he would like to have air quality testing to see the concentration of the gas.

Jim Phipps, Chandler spokesman, said investigating the health risks is part of eliminating the odors. Jim Larsen, Intel's Environmental Health Safety manager at its Ocotillo plant, said the ponds were built in 1994 in what was then a remote area. The ponds are five miles from the plant at Ocotillo and Dobson roads.

The company ultrapurifies its water for use in making chips and then sends leftover water that is concentrated with minerals to the ponds to evaporate.

Phipps said the city was beginning to issue occupancy permits for Fonte al Sol in 2003.

The city had been treating the ponds since that year to address the midge flies and monitor insect populations, according to city records.

Phipps said the earliest odor complaints came in fall 2005, when the city paid a consultant, Frederick Amalfi of Aquatic Consulting and Testing, to treat the ponds with algaecide.

Phipps said the city held neighborhood meetings in April and October and continued to work on the problem.

In April, the city paid the consultant $170,000 to address the midge flies and odor problems.

Larsen said Intel became aware of the odor problem at the end of last year and has been working with the consultant to come up with a permanent solution.

In a July 3 letter to residents, Amalfi said he and city workers had been successfully treating the water with chemicals for the short term while Chandler and Intel worked with another consultant to develop a long-term solution, but the heat and wind direction were making the short-term solutions a "real challenge."

"It seemed to work for a while until the weather got hotter," Cunningham said.

Amalfi said the other consultant recommended a mechanical system and once a pilot test on it proves reliable, then a permanent one will be designed and installed.

Larsen said Intel will pick up the tab for the system, which will cost at least several hundred thousand dollars.

"The money's all ready to go," Larsen said.