Last week the Editor sent me a copy of a November 29 official Pima County Memorandum from the Pima County Administrator to each of the members of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, with copies to staff members. It was a response to an Arizona Daily Star article published November 26 about the inability to locate the source of “foul, manure-like odors in Southern Marana.”
The daily newspaper said that Pima County Department of Environmental Quality investigators could not find the source of the big stink. Pima County wastewater reclamation staff thought it might be “burps” from the Tres Rios facility’s wastewater digesters.
The Pima County Administrator told the Supervisors that Pima County responds to “odor complaints on a regular basis.” He noted that over $3.5 million is spent annually “to isolate and identify the causes of…odor complaints.” He thought it “likely” the smell came from a vegetation composting operation on Ina Road.
Your Intrepid Reporter set out to find the truth. I armed my vehicle with a certified Smell-O-Meter on my dash and drove along Ina Road, window open and nose held high. I detected a whiff of noxious fumes and I turned north, following the Smell-O-Meter’s GPS directions.
It led me to the Marana Town Hall where the Marana Unified School District meets. The Smell-O-Meter beeped and a readout appeared on its screen. The MUSD Governing Board had accepted a deal from Monsanto, taking a one-time payment in lieu of five years’ worth of school taxes that would add up to about eight times the amount offered. That stunk, and I thought I had found the source, but suddenly the Smell-O-Meter rumbled and sent me southwest to the 155 acres Monsanto just bought from a Marana Town Councilmember for its GMO corn seed factory. The odor was worse here, and the digital readout noted that Monsanto is laying off 2600 people and closing three other research operations.
The Smell-O-Meter rumbled and I set off again. It’s amazing what technology can do these days, and so I should not have been surprised that the GPS led me to Spaceport Tucson where World View, with Pima County taxpayer financial support, will launch its $75,000 balloon rides to the edge of space. The Smell-O-Meter led me directly to a balloon being inflated for a launch and the readout came up fast: flatulence. Hot air from the nether regions was being used to inflate the balloons. I held my nose and made notes. Then the Smell-O-Meter rumbled again and sent me east, into downtown Tucson.
This time the GPS led me, despite heavy traffic, to the Pima County building being refurbished for Caterpillar executives while they wait for a new taxpayer-paid headquarters to be built. The Smell-O-Meter’s readout indicated the smell of evaporating sweat and raw fear from the 900 Caterpillar employees being fired in South Milwaukee. Plus the intense odor of raw greed.
The Smell-O-Meter rumbled again, taking me east to Raytheon, or rather, to the edge of the buffer zone bought by Pima County. The digital readout flashed, telling me the odor here was pure cow manure. The much-hyped 2000 jobs Pima County is putting up “incentives” money for won’t even replace all of the people laid off in recent years by the defense contractor. The machine rumbled yet again, and I followed its directions back into downtown Tucson.
Nearing I-19 the Smell-O-Meter went crazy, flashing “I-11, I-11.” Billions of taxpayer dollars are being sought with bipartisan congressional support to facilitate the movement of jobs to Mexico and the transport of containers lured from the West Coast to the Port of Guaymas. There was a sort of sickly sweetish smell in the air and the machine identified it as newly-elected Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy’s aftershave lotion. Christy headed the State Transportation Board when it approved a $15 million Environmental Impact Study to support Interstate 11.
The GPS now led me to 130 W. Congress Street, Pima County Headquarters. The Smell-O-Meter sparked and sputtered, the digital readout showing “cesspool of corruption” in big red letters before the screen went black and the machine died. If there was a central source of The Big Stink, this was clearly it. I could smell the saccharine-sweet words in the air trying to cover the stench of rot and ruin. I didn’t need a Smell-O-Meter.
In Journalism 101 we are taught to differentiate between facts and opinions. So I must tell you that the first three paragraphs of this story are absolutely factual. The rest of the story has facts mixed with innuendo, plagiarism, fabrication, gossip and general bullshit, just like a Jim Nintzel column. Or a County memorandum.