Des Moines to launch new odor control training, testing

There’s a science to sniffing the stenches of Des Moines, and the city will implement it into new training and testing as it aims to set odor control limits, said SuAnn Donavan, deputy director of the city’s neighborhood services department.

At a Monday morning work session, Donovan updated City Council, the mayor and other officials on the effort to address some of the unpleasant smells that Des Moines dwellers have come to know. In recent years, residents have complained the city reeked of “dog poo” and worse on social media, and to the 24/7 odor hotline (515-244-0336), with inspectors pointing back to animal processing plants or farms spreading manure over fields.

Odor-generating companies can include a range of businesses including meatpacking plants, rendering plants, a soybean drying facility and even coffee roasters, Donovan said. She estimates there are about a dozen within city limits. 

How Des Moines plans to address the odor

The city is currently negotiating a contract for a two-part approach to address the funk, Donovan said.

First, the contractor would train city inspectors on how to detect, locate and differentiate odors from different sources. No such training has been in place for nearly two decades, Donovan said.

The second part of the contract would include testing the air near odor-generating businesses to establish a baseline of odor levels in the city, identify the most significant contributors, and to help establish new odor limits that the city will ask companies to create a plan to meet. That process would likely take a year, she said.

Responding to a question from Councilwoman Linda Westergaard about whether the state and county already regulate pollutants that cause odors, Donovan said pollutants can be a source of odor, but the two issues generally necessitate different solutions.

The city launched its odor hotline in 1991 when a “particularly bad issue” forced the community to take action including convening a citizen odor board to collect complaints, Donovan previously told the Des Moines Register. The council voted to disband the citizen odor board, which had no enforcement power, in 2019.

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