Odours in S.E. Calgary

Odours have become an issue in the S.E. area in recent years. The City is committed to ensuring that odours are kept to a minimum where possible and working closely with the communities and relevant parties in the area.

S.E. Odour Investigation project

The City of Calgary is working with Jacobs Engineering to look into the issues around odours in the S.E. area. The City operates several key infrastructures that may contribute to odour issues in the surrounding communities. There are also private agricultural or industrial activities that may add to the problem. 

Communities most often impacted by odours include:

  • New Brighton
  • McKenzie Towne
  • Copperfield

The goals of the third-party project are:

  • To determine where odours may be coming from and what activities from those sites might be contributing to it
  • To review the current odour control measures at the sites and recommend odour control measures to City-operated facilities to reduce impacts to the surrounding area
  • To provide The City with an air dispersion modelling program that will assist in identifying worst odour sources, and developing mitigation solutions and where and when to implement them
Southland lagoon

Timeline

Click to view larger image

How to report odours

If you notice an odour issue in your community, please contact 311 to report it. Please be specific with details by including information like:

  • Date and time that you notice the odour
  • Location for where you noticed the odour
  • Duration of the odour
  • Description of odour (swampy, garbage-like, acidic etc).

Please note that odour is difficult to investigate as it can be fleeting, difficult to describe, and produces very different reactions from person to person.

All odour service requests are reviewed. We will get in touch only when further information is needed.

311 online request

Infrastructure in S.E. area

Facility/Infrastructure What do odours smell like from this location?
Shepard lagoons (for biosolids) Ammonia, sewer, fecal, swampy
Calgary Composting Facility (for green cart program) Acidic, wet vegetation, barnyard, peat, earthy
Shepard landfill (for waste disposal) Garbage-like, sour

Storm ponds and wetlands – natural and constructed (for stormwater management) 

 Swampy, sulphur-like smell
Private facilities – industrial and agricultural Various e.g. food processing and manufacturing, stockyards and livestock processing facilities, hydrovac land application, manure etc.
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