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New Bedford logged 24 odor complaints near its South End sewer plant, and a council panel takes them up Nov. 23

South End residents have pressed the council on the smell since a 2024 petition, and a consultant priced a $57,030 odor study for the city in December 2024, plus about $40,000 in sampling expenses.

By the SC360 Town Hall Desk | Published Nov. 13, 2026 | Last verified Nov. 13, 2026, 3:56 a.m. ET

NEW BEDFORD New Bedford logged 24 odor complaints from the South End near the city sewage treatment plant from January through August, and a City Council committee will take up that list on Monday, Nov. 23.

The log is a one-page table the city attached to the agenda for the council's Environmental Affairs Special Committee, which meets at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Room 214, at 133 William St. The agenda says the meeting will be streamed live and recorded.

The list answers a request two councilors made in September, and it is the newest record in a complaint South End residents brought to the council in a 2024 petition. It shows the calls came heaviest in June and August, with eight in each month.

What the log shows

The table lists each complaint by date, time and address, from Jan. 3 to Aug. 28, and ends with the line "2026 TOTAL 24," the count The Standard-Times reported on Sept. 18. By month, the log shows two complaints in January and one in February, none in March or April, four in May, eight in June, one in July and eight in August.

Seaview Terrace accounts for 12 of the 24 entries and Nina Street for five more. The rest came from Portland Street, Freedom Boulevard, West Rodney French Boulevard, Herman Melville Boulevard and the Low Tide Yacht Club, and two entries list no address. One person's name appears on 10 of the 24 complaints, and the entries run from early morning to late evening.

How the council got here

Councilor Ian Abreu and Council President Ryan Pereira filed the written motion for the Sept. 10 council meeting, asking the Department of Public Infrastructure "and any other applicable City department" to give the committee a list of all logged calls about odor complaints in the South End and around the sewage treatment plant, according to that night's agenda. The Nov. 23 agenda lists Public Infrastructure Commissioner Jamie Ponte, City Solicitor Eric Jaikes and the council's legal counsel, David Gerwatowski, as invitees.

The complaints go back further than this year, to a petition from South End residents about the sewage treatment facility on South Rodney French Boulevard that was referred to the council's Appointments and Briefings Committee on Sept. 26, 2024, and was tabled on Oct. 15, 2024, May 20, 2025 and May 19, 2026, according to that committee's Sept. 15, 2026 agenda, where it was listed again.

The petition, attached to that agenda, says its signers "find it difficult to live in our homes with the nauseating and toxic odors emitted by the sewage treatment facility to our immediate south." It says many of them are seniors under the care of heart and lung specialists who are "forced into our homes to close our windows and to run expensive air conditioning when we have cool dry weather conditions," and that their complaints to the city and the state Department of Environmental Protection had been "to no avail."

The odor study that was priced

In October 2024 a related council motion asked whether the city could hire a company to study the South End odors. Tetra Tech, an environmental consulting firm, sent the city's Resilience and Environmental Stewardship Department a draft scope of work on Dec. 18, 2024, priced at $57,030 plus expenses for a sampling plan, two rounds of odor sampling, a final report and project management. The proposal puts those expenses, for lab analysis at eight sampling locations and travel on the two sampling rounds, at about $40,000 more, billed at cost.

The proposal lists the possible sources the firm was told about: the sewage treatment facility, natural sources at low tide, a metal processing facility and a dye and printing facility. It says the odors had been described as smelling of sewage, chemicals or metal, and that the sources and pollutants "have not been specifically identified."

In a Jan. 13, 2025 memo to the council's clerk of committees, Resilience and Environmental Stewardship Director Michele Paul wrote that the city's 20 air monitors, funded by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, track pollutants such as fine particles and ozone and are not built to detect odors, which noses pick up "at much lower levels than can be measured by instrumentation." She asked the council to say whether it wanted to go ahead, writing that her department would then "submit the appropriate request for funding." The study motion went the same way as the petition, tabled in May 2025 and again in May 2026.

Also before the council

On Nov. 23 the Environmental Affairs committee will also take up a motion from Councilor Leo Choquette on the trucking agreement for materials moved through the Shawmut Avenue neighborhood behind the New Bedford Airport, with invitations to the owners of A-1 Asphalt at 1861 Shawmut Ave. and Pico Stone at 104 River Road. That motion was referred on May 12 and tabled at the committee's June 9 meeting.

Six days earlier, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, the council's Appointments and Briefings Committee is scheduled to take up a motion from Pereira, Abreu and two other councilors to meet with South Coast Neighbors United about putting the group's air sensors across New Bedford and about environmental and health issues in the South End. A related motion from Pereira asks the Board of Health and the Health Department for data on any chronic or concentrated illness across the South End peninsula. Paul, Ponte and Health Director Stephanie Sloan are among the invitees.

How to watch or weigh in

The meeting is open to the public at City Hall, and the city streams council and committee meetings on its home page under Quick Links, then Meetings. Residents who need an accommodation can call the City Council Office at 508-979-1455, at least 48 hours ahead, the agenda says.

South Coast 360 asked the mayor's office, Abreu, Pereira and Choquette on Nov. 12 about the complaints, the odor study and what they want from the Nov. 23 meeting, and will add their answers to this story when they reply.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.

Notes

Every fact comes from New Bedford City Council records on the city Granicus portal: the Nov. 23 Environmental Affairs agenda and the complaint log attached to it, the Sept. 10 council agenda, the Sept. 15 Appointments and Briefings agenda with the 2024 petition, the Jan. 13, 2025 stewardship memo and the Dec. 18, 2024 Tetra Tech proposal attached to it, the June 9 Environmental Affairs agenda and the Nov. 17 Appointments and Briefings agenda. We read them on Nov. 12 and Nov. 13, 2026, and counted the log by month and street by hand from the scanned page. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. We do not name the residents in the log or on the petition. Asked Nov. 12, not yet heard: the mayor's office, Councilor Ian Abreu, Council President Ryan Pereira and Councilor Leo Choquette.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (10)

  1. New Bedford City Council, Environmental Affairs Special Committee agenda, Monday, Nov. 23, 2026, 7 p.m.City Council agenda on the city Granicus portal. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  2. Logged odor complaint calls, January to August 2026 (attachment to the Nov. 23 agenda)One-page scanned table, 24 entries, total line "2026 TOTAL 24". Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  3. New Bedford City Council agenda, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026Item 10, the Abreu and Pereira written motion. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  4. New Bedford City Council, Appointments and Briefings Committee agenda, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026Item 5 and 5a, the South End petition and the odor analysis motion, with their table dates. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  5. Petition from South End residents on the sewage treatment facility (2024)Attachment to the Sept. 15, 2026 agenda. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  6. Memorandum, South End Odor Study, Michele Paul, Jan. 13, 2025Attachment to the Sept. 15, 2026 agenda. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  7. Tetra Tech, draft odor analysis preliminary scope of work, Dec. 18, 2024Attachment to the Sept. 15, 2026 agenda; Table 1 cost summary and the odor sampling expenses note. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  8. New Bedford City Council, Appointments and Briefings Committee agenda, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2026, 7 p.m.Items 8 and 8a, the South Coast Neighbors United air sensor motion and the South End illness data motion. Read Nov. 13, 2026.
  9. New Bedford City Council, Environmental Affairs Special Committee agenda, Tuesday, June 9, 2026The Choquette trucking motion. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
  10. The Standard-Times, Sept. 18, 2026Credited for reporting the 24-complaint count. Listed Nov. 12, 2026.

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