Early-morning odor in Lewiston-Auburn puzzles officials

LEWISTON – The cause of an odor said to be wafting along the streets of Lewiston and Auburn early Thursday morning left area health officials puzzled.

Alternately described as a light sewage to boiled cabbage smell, the funk was reported from the top of Auburn’s Goff Hill to Lewiston’s Pettengill School, according to the Sun Journal of Lewiston.

Mary Jane Dillingham, water quality manager for the Auburn Water District, said a half-dozen residents called Thursday morning to inquire about the odor.

“We’re always one of the first places people call when they smell something,” she said.

But Dillingham said nothing was out of the ordinary in Auburn. And the Lewiston-Auburn Water Pollution Control Authority in Lewiston also offered no leads.

Dillingham suggested that the smell could be linked to low water flows on the Androscoggin River after a period of prolonged drought.

Bob Lent, district chief for the U. S. Geological Survey in Maine, said that’s not likely. He noted that most Maine rivers have a rocky or sandy bottom and lack the kind of organic matter that would create a smell.