Tacoma, Washington spent most of a century recognized for its odor. The Aroma of Tacoma — a rotten-egg odor concentrated within the tideflats and acquainted to anybody driving that stretch of Interstate 5 — acquired its identify by the early Nineteen Forties, although resident George Francis Prepare was already rhyming on it in a 1901 civic cheer: “Seattle! Seattle! Demise Rattle, Demise Rattle; Tacoma! Tacoma! Aroma, Aroma!”
Blame has landed on sediment in Graduation Bay, sulfur from the Simpson Tacoma Kraft pulp and paper mill, a rendering plant, and the U.S. Oil refinery. In 1997, metropolis officers made issues worse for a number of weeks by unsealing a sewage tank that had been closed for 15 years, throughout a stretch of humid climate.
Throughout a mid-Eighties cease on the Tacoma Dome, Bruce Springsteen reported the odor was so overwhelming he left city early — the EPA traced it to sulfur from the paper mill 1.5 miles away. Analysis in 2003 prompt the odor had depressed town’s housing costs long-term. The mill put in new combustion know-how within the early 2000s, and the WestRock paper mill closed for good in September 2023.
Beforehand:
• Denver residents renew authorized battle over pungent Purina pet meals plant
