Photo Illustration by Benjamin Minch and Yasir Khaliq
by Benjamin Minch, Staff Writer
Many students have been realizing that lately, in the mornings, the bowl smells like sulfur and rotten eggs. Nobody knows where the smell comes from or what it is and just assume the janitors are repairing some sewage pipe. But students are starting to get suspicious now that the smell is present almost every morning around the sewage drain in the bowl.
“It smells like yeast and rotten eggs every time I get to school,” said Austin Nguyen (‘18), one of the many students who is upset with the harsh morning smell.
The stink has been around since the beginning of the year, which is our first clue into finding out what is causing the smell. It also only smells around the Southeast drain pipe if you are facing the stage, nowhere else unless the smell has diffused. The final clue that we have is that the smell disappears around the time 9:00, right when the sun starts to shine high and the weather becomes hot.
Based on the the third clue, we can know that the smell is coming from a gas because as the day gets hotter, the gas rises and therefore the smell will disappear. From clue number two, we know that the smell is from the sewer and what is inside the sewer: water. Water from Mile Square Park to be exact.
According to an article by OC Register, the pond at Mile Square Park had been reported by the sanitation department for causing odors. This was caused by an algae buildup in the pond, which broke the filter for the pond. The park has attempted to solve the problem by draining all of their smelly water into a drainage canal: a canal that is probably connected to our drainage system at Fountain Valley High School.
The park has already tried a number of tactics to rid the odor from the air, such as emptying the whole pond and then refilling it, but none of these methods are working.
“I think that it is fully the park’s fault for the smell” said Nguyen. “I think they should use a water filter or febreeze to try and purify the smell of the pond.”
The park manager Scott Chaffin said “Unfortunately, we can’t wave a magic wand. Hopefully this will do it”. This means that the process of cleaning the pond will take time and there is no immediate solution to the problem at hand.
If you are really unpleased with the smell, the worst thing to do is blame the school janitors because they really have no control over what goes into our drains. There have already been multiple complaints from people around the area about the smell, some saying that they “refuse to open their car windows”, proving this is a problem worth city investigation.
The stink will be around for for a while, so in that time, students should try and avoid drains from seven o’clock to nine o’clock in the morning because that is when the stench is most prevalent. If worst comes to worst, just breathe in the nasty algae and swamp water, knowing that it will soon be fixed and that fresh classroom air is just moments away.
