Irene Botta sleeps with a bar of soap under her pillow.
As an 86-year-old resident of Thornton, Botta says the odor coming off the town’s quarry reservoir can be oppressive.
“Just this last rainstorm a few weeks ago, it was awful,” she said, recalling a particularly smelly day when the July flood rains stirred up the contents of the reservoir just south of her home. “I went upstairs to see if it was the toilet but no, it was the (reservoir).”
Gigantic tubes as much as 33-feet wide carry the rainwater and sewage all the way to a limestone basin in Thornton.
The Thornton Composite Reservoir, which residents say is known around town as the toilet, received one of its biggest tests when torrential rains triggered historic flooding in Cook County. And while all indications are the reservoir handled the task by not overflowing and reducing flooding in many communities, residents around the reservoir describe the constant odor that affects their daily lives.
“It smells really bad, it’s really bad,” said resident Wanda Poplar, who said she is moving out of the Thornton area because of “the break-ins and the smell.”
Sometimes the air wafts in a heavy sewage odor. Other times, residents say it smells more faintly like burned rubber or gasoline. On a summer week with a light breeze, the odor envelopes the town for three days, they said.
And then it goes away.
“Probably nothing is going to get done about it,” Poplar said.
Allison Fore, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, explained millions of dollars were invested in trying to reduce the impact of the odor when the reservoir first opened. Then, at the end of 2021, town leadership reached out to MWRD to reengage in discussions on how to further reduce the impact the smell has had on residents.
“The odor neutralization system is currently being expanded at a cost of $1.05 million and will operate on the fence line of the reservoir facing the communities,” Fore said in an email earlier this month.
Two other seven-figure contracts pledge to reduce the odor for residents by 2025. Fore stressed MWRD’s dedication to helping reduce the smell, saying “the Thornton Composite Reservoir is an extremely large, complex operation and significant changes take time.”
One of the less expensive but more natural fixes MWRD has attempted is planting trees along the road.
“(The reservoir) killed all the trees, so just imagine what it’s doing to us,” said Christine Donnelly, a lifelong area resident.
Fore said not all the trees died, but those along the east side of the reservoir did not thrive.
“Not because of any odor issues — but due to the soil depth,” Fore said in an email. “In 2022, we started planting new types of trees and shrubs that should thrive in lower soil depths.”
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For those with existing health issues, the odor can be enough of a deterrent to stay inside.
“Most of the time, I’m in the house because I’m not in the best of health,” said Charlotte Deal, who has cancer. “So I gotta stay away from the smells and stuff. … So I try not to come out and breathe too much.”
Fore said MWRD hopes to hear from more residents on its website at www.mwrd.org or by calling 800-332-3867.
Thornton Village Administrator Doug Beckman said recently some people may no longer report complaints to MWRD because they do not think anything will happen.
Asking residents to describe the odor draws grimaces and scrunched noses. But the events that garner the biggest hatred are blasts from the reservoir’s adjacent quarry that residents say, while less frequent, still shake the foundations of their homes.
Botta and her friend Kathy White looked to their right at their neighbor’s home with walls scarred with deep lines signifying damage to the siding.
“They were drilling and blasting, I got the cracks and everything,” said Larry Valentine, who said he filed a claim against the contractor whose blasting caused the damage.