Residents and businesses in the New Jersey city of Elizabeth say they are fed up with a persistent foul odor that some say has been a problem for months, according to Eyewitness News ABC7NY.
At Del Porto Restaurante, staff said they had expected a lot of business from the World Cup, but the smell was so unbearable that people could not sit outside on the patio. "It smells like rotten eggs all day long, every day," one person said.
Auto body shop employees down the street have not been spared either, saying that even with the plant about three blocks away, they can still get the smell.
City officials say the putrid stench is coming from the Edward P. Decker secondary wastewater treatment facility.
The plant is owned and operated by the joint meeting of Essex and Union counties and serves several communities, with the City of Elizabeth among its tenants.
The city's Department of Health and Human Services says that since April it has been inundated with complaints. One resident described the smell as if you were sitting in your own toilet and decided to put your head in it.
The mayor says the city is ready to take legal action and levy substantial daily fines against the facility, adding that the odor emanating over the past couple of months has been the strongest it has ever been in the history of the city. He said that if the city cannot resolve the problem, he is ready to ask the governor's office to step in. ABC7NY said it reached out multiple times to the joint meeting of Essex and Union counties but had not heard back.