SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. (AP) - Big Ox Energy will stop paying motel bills next week for South Sioux City residents displaced by sewer odor, a company spokesman said.
As many as two dozen residents were originally displaced by the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide permeating several homes. As of last week, a dozen remained at motels or at the homes of friends and family. The company has been covering the bills since late October.
“We are now working with the residents who we’ve been in touch with to get them back into their homes,” company spokesman Evan Zeppos told the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal (https://bit.ly/2jGTw71 ). “We are working with them on individual remediation plans.”
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Big Ox’s original agreement with the city set Jan. 31 as the payments deadline, but the company extended it a week. Zeppos said the agreement allows longer stays for people whose homes have reasonable remedial requirements that cannot be met by Feb. 7.
City Administrator Lance Hedquist said the city has no plans to use city funds for extending the motel stays.
The source of the hydrogen sulfide that caused the smell in the homes is still being investigated.
In late October city officials said the gas seemed to be emanating from sewer lines flowing from the Big Ox plant at the city’s Roth Industrial Park. Last week Big Ox Energy released a report that pointed at plumbing issues in the majority of the homes instead of discharges from the Big Ox plant.
Test results have shown that hydrogen sulfide is now at safe levels in the homes, and the city is still testing for any smelly sulfur-related compounds that remain.
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Information from: Sioux City Journal, https://www.siouxcityjournal.com
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