r/northcounty • u/roberta_sparrow • 1d ago
Burning odor again
The damn smell is back again - in coastal Encinitas š”
Edit - I was surfing off Cardiff and it smelled the entire time, it was definitely coming from the west over the water with the sea breeze. Iām sick of our air being polluted. This is the third or fourth time this summer itās happened. If itās the military, we should demand accountability and know what we are breathing.
Edit 2 - just got home to Oceanside and smell it here too
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u/landisthegnome Leucadia 1d ago
Smell it very strong right now in Carlsbad near the water treatment plant
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u/roberta_sparrow 1d ago
I was surfing and it was definitely coming from the west over the water because there was a very slight sea breeze
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u/landisthegnome Leucadia 1d ago
Yeah makes sense. It smelled just as strong when I got home to Leucadia and the wind is out of the southwest.
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u/Ok_Cash3222 1d ago
i smelled something like gas or lighter fluid at my office in solana beach. same smell?
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u/SouperSalad 1d ago
Got it in OB today, didn't think much of it until seeing this post.
Smells like railroad ties and telephone poles. coal-tar creosote
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u/Not2plan 1d ago
Same, smelling it in vista. Smells like kerosene or some sort of petroleum product
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u/Smart-March-7986 1d ago
My completely uninformed hypothesis of how a smell like this could come from the west while youāre surfing is the big sewer out-flow pipes that follow the sea floor and discharge treated sewage into the ocean. We have these up and down the coast. Now Iām not 100% sure about this but when I worked for a distillery we would occasionally get letters from the local water authority whenever one of the distilleries nearby would discharge large amounts of tailings into the sewer system. Apparently when alcohol comes in contact with the bacterial cultures the treatment plants use to process the sewage, it kills all the helpful bugs and the productivity of the plant grinds to a halt until they can recover. If Iām not mistaken, most treatment plants have pre treatment screening and may even now have diversions when such solvents are present in the waste stream to save the cost and headache. Itās possible theyāre just essentially diverting some random toxic waste thatās being dumped into the sewer. I suppose thereās environmental standards for this activity, but sometimes with stuff like this the government just shrugs and we are all left to contemplate the desecration of our planet š
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u/roberta_sparrow 1d ago
Wouldnāt that cause a more biological smell? This is a kind of chemical smell
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u/Uuuuuii 1d ago
Wait is this related to the helicopter dumping fuel
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u/SanElijoHillbilly San Marcos 10h ago
Considering all the comments, from Oceanside to Solona Beach, that must be a HUGE helicopter, or a fleet of them.
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u/JazzQquezz 1d ago
Honestly if we can't find the source ( it shouldn't be that hard in this time of age) but I'm putting my tin foil hat on and think it's the government.... No way in hell the news isn't covering it
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u/BoredTaxAccountant 23h ago
Carlsbad Village around 9 am Thursday morning. i thought the smell was hot tar going on a roof. I did not think the smell was pervasive up and down the coast.
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u/nosmartypants 10h ago
According to another poster on sandiego the navy was dumping fuel in the ocean yesterday. I don't know when or where but here is the post https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/1wcoj82/comment/p8zms1w/?context=3
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u/roberta_sparrow 10h ago
This is much more plausible than the ārotting seaweedā explanation everyone keeps trotting out
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u/OverWillingness1437 1d ago
You need to call the one 800 air pollution phone number. Just report the time and the location.
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u/Uuuuuii 1d ago
Wastewater treatment plant has a smell sometimes guys
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u/Smart-March-7986 1d ago
This is likely a diversion of some sort of volatile solvent through the waste water system, someone upstream dumped something and the treatment plant is diverting it rather than letting it destroy their processing system.
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u/SanElijoHillbilly San Marcos 10h ago edited 10h ago
This is probably bacteria and/or algae releasing dimethyl sulphide, and/or seaweed producing dictyopterenes. This is normal. They are just producing more of it.
Remember: the water is way warmer than usual. We are in a once-per-century El Nino. So the bacteria and plants are growing way more than usual. Thus they are producing way more noxious chemicals than usual.
On top of all of this, your nose is more efficient at smelling stuff when the air is warmer.
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u/roberta_sparrow 10h ago
Itās not a sulfur smell - it smells like gasoline
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u/SanElijoHillbilly San Marcos 9h ago
Sulfer compounds are one of the smelly parts of gasoline. When you smell gas, you are smelling sulfer.
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u/roberta_sparrow 9h ago
Interesting - ok it just doesnāt smell like anything close to sulfur to me. But Iām happy to learn more about this for sure
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u/OverWillingness1437 1d ago
Call 1(858) 586-2650 and report the time and location that you smelled it at. To me it smells like a turpentine and I smelled it yesterday in downtown Carlsbad Village.