By Alesha Capone
Several residents have reported an “unbearable” odour permeating Wyndham’s air in recent weeks, which is forcing people to keep their windows shut.
The Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) received 76 reports of odour coming from Wyndham between February 8 and 22.
A third of the reports came from Werribee and a smaller amount from Wyndham Vale.
According to the EPA, most of the calls did not specify a suspected source of the smell.
Residents have also been posting on social media about the stench, with other areas affected including Manor Lakes and Hoppers Crossing.
Manor Lakes resident Harikiran said the “sewage” odour was becoming more frequent. He said it was “unbearable at times”.
“In summer when it’s very hot, you can’t even switch on ducted cooling as the entire house would start stinking,” he said.
Another resident told Star Weekly that the odour caused their autistic eight-year-old child, who is sensitive to smells, to vomit.
A second parent said: “My eight-year-old refuses to open his bedroom window now, in his words ‘I don’t want the smell of poo coming in’.”
Other residents commented that “our quality of life is deteriorating due to the constant waft of sewage coming from the south every time we have a warm, humid day”.
“Some days we must lock ourselves inside our homes until the stink passes,” they said.
“We have to shut our windows so we don’t have to breathe in this nauseating smell.”
The EPA’s western metropolitan regional manager Stephen Lansdell said the agency has undertaken odour surveys in the Wyndham area and “is continuing investigations into several potential industrial and agricultural sources of the odour”.
“We urge people to report odour problems promptly, to EPA’s 24-hour hotline on 1300 EPA VIC (1300 372 842),” Mr Landsell said.
“It’s vital that anyone reporting odour does so as quickly as possible, and describes the odour.”
He said that if the EPA received multiple reports of odour, the callers’ locations could help to track the source of the smell.
See www.epa.vic.gov.au/report-pollution/report-odour/describe-odour for tips on how to describe odour.
