The infamous smell lingering on Highway 89A near Park Place Private Residences in West Sedona may soon meet
its match.
The fix will come in the form of a soil bed — a mix of media that will “eat” the hydrogen sulfide and eliminate the odor.
The city of Sedona spent $50,000 for Woodson Engineering & Survey to draw up the plan and put it out for bid Aug. 12, according to Director of Public Works Charles Mosley.
By Alison Ecklund
Larson Newspapers
The infamous smell lingering on Highway 89A near Park Place Private Residences in West Sedona may soon meet
its match.
The fix will come in the form of a soil bed — a mix of media that will “eat” the hydrogen sulfide and eliminate the odor.
The city of Sedona spent $50,000 for Woodson Engineering & Survey to draw up the plan and put it out for bid Aug. 12, according to Director of Public Works Charles Mosley.
Many contractors have responded, and the lowest bid so far is $125,802 to do the project, according to Associate Engineer David Mann said.
On Tuesday, Sept. 9, city council will look to approve a contractor for the project.
If everything runs smoothly, the city hopes to have the solution in place by Thanksgiving, Mann said.
The odor comes from a transition manhole directly in front of the Park Place condos on Highway 89A.
Originally the odor was a concern for selling the condos, Park Place partner Ben Miller said, but when the city approved funding for a solution last February, it gave him a sense of security.
The transition manhole sits at a peak where a forced pump line meets the gravity line that conveys sewage to the city’s Wastewater Reclamation Plant.
Plans call for a pipe to push the air west under Park Place land, to a plot of land beyond Park Place fences. Park Place will donate half the land to the city and sell the city the other half, Miller said.
The 30- by 50-foot piece of land will house the Bohn Biofilter soil bed.
Piping under the bed will force the air up through the media; by the time it reaches the surface, the smell should be gone.
According to the Bohn Biofilter Web site, “the contaminant gas molecules flow through a biofilter like pebbles in a stream; settling out the air stream, they are then absorbed and degraded by microbes.”
The microbes convert the contaminants to carbon dioxide and water, making this a safe, natural and non-hazardous process.
The trick to keeping the soil bed working is to keep the media moist, Mann explained.
A water irrigation pipe will be placed under the soil bed to allow irrigation, if necessary.
In the event the area ever gets too wet, a sump pump will also be installed.
“It will require maintenance from city staff to make sure conditions are right there,” Mann said.
The soil bed won’t be raised and won’t look any different from red rock gravel, so a split-level fence will be erected to prevent vehicles from driving on it.
The solution is a system that’s been around for years, Mosley said. He and staff checked on active soil bed systems in Phoenix before deciding.
“It’s a very simple system,” Mosley said. “It’s much less expensive than what we were initially investigating.”
Miller is positive the solution will work.
“I think the city has done everything they were supposed to do,” he said. “It’ll work. There has been a lot of research.”
Alison Ecklund can be reached at 282-7795, Ext. 125, or e-mail
aecklund@larsonnewspapers.com
