ROCKLAND — There is no big mystery to the persistent smell at the quarry dump, according to City Councilor Oram Lawry III. The council Monday night approved a $50,000 study to find solutions to the problem, which reportedly is driving neighbors to distraction.

The Stop the Stench group has organized, collected petitions and threatened to derail the dump’s permanent license, now pending before the Department of Environmental Protection, if no solutions are found — and fast. The proposed two-year period of the study is not acceptable, group members have told the council.

There are two major culprits identified. FMC dumps its “filter aid” or process byproduct into the quarry. But the company has been doing the same thing for decades without the smell now being generated at the dump. The change, Lawry said, is when the city started dumping its sewer treatment sludge into the quarry.

Lawry agreed with Stop the Stench members who accused the city of violating its own ordinances by creating a nuisance in fouling the air. The solution is simple enough, Lawry said. Take the sludge out of the dump.

That, of course creates another problem. What do you do with it?

The solution could be lying on the lawn of the Rockland Golf Club, according to Lawry. The club and thousands of other consumers purchase Milorganite, a particularly effective fertilizer created by the Milwaukee municipal treatment plant, which sells for $120-$140 per ton. Greg Howard of the golf club told Lawry about the product.

“If Milwaukee can do it, why can’t the midcoast communities?” Lawry asked.

Bangor is already doing a recycling project, selling its composted sludge. If the sludge were heat-treated instead of composted, a superior fertilizer would result. Bangor is looking into the heat treated process for its sludge and Rockland officials will be brought up to date on developments, Lawry said.

No one is using the heat process on the East Coast, Lawry said. He suggested that it might be time to look into it. It might solve the problem at the dump, while generating some revenue, he said.