They used to call it “The Aroma Of Tacoma”

[Jim Bow]

But thanks to that evil socialistic Environmental Protection Agency, it’s pure odorless steam. No more aroma.


1EA6ACF1-A0B8-45E8-8ADE-4C1EF0995922.jpg

BTW, this is the camera that sat on the floor of our coat closet for 15+ years.

[Jimmy W]

The camera does a good job.
With some slight tweaking of levels and curves.

steam.jpg

[JayInOz]

They still do the occasional story here about pollution from coal fired power stations, nearly always accompanied by a photo of steam rising from the cooling towers

[hawkeye54]

When I was stationed in Long Beach, Ca. back in the late 1960's, the 'Aroma of Long Beacb' was the tuna cannery - definitely a unique smell



Rick

[Jack Loudon]

I don't know about Tacoma, but on the way into Port Townsend yesterday (17th Annual Strange Brewfest) the PT Paper Company mill aroma was alive and well.

[sandtown]

Now if we could just do something about Hanford . . .

[johnw]

In Bellingham, we used to call the papermill smell 'tunagas.'

[JamesCaird]

In Fernandina Beach, Florida (on the east coast just north of JAX) are two paper mills- they call it "The Smell of Money".

[wizbang 13]

Tacoma stink ‘o weed these days .
Old buildings converted to grow ops in the Nalley Valley .
Yes, it’s always “ hoo farted?” entering Port Townsend. Helluva spot for a tourist lunch.

[Bobcat]

Spent my time ashore in troll season of '81 staying in low rent house in Toledo, Oregon. It was right above the GP pulp mill and the air stunk. No one complained about the pollution because Georgia Pacific was the biggest employer in town.

Don't miss those days

[Nicholas Carey]

Growing up in Cincinnati, in Clifton, Ivorydale (Proctor & Gamble's factory) was just down the hill, with Fries & Fries, at the time, the world's largest "flavor maker" — they made artificial flavors and scents.

it was a mix of rancid fats from Ivorydale (soap starts with something), and whatever flavor/scent Fries &Fries was running that day.

Much depended on the wind.

[Gary Davis]

Our flavor wafts from the sugar beet refinery. Its an odd acrid smell that probably smells like money to someone.

[White River]

I grew up with that lovely aroma and the smell of the Naphthol refinery. If the wind was just right we got both at the same time. The mill and refinery are long gone thank you very much!

[Brian Palmer]

I moved to Hershey, PA in 1996. At the time, the town sometimes smelled like chocolate, other times like burned brownies. Since they built a new factory, the chocolate smell is gone.

[Todd D]

I always thought the Tacoma smell was from the Asarco refinery. Used to try to hold my breath when driving past Tacoma. The only place worse was Albany, OR because of the zircalloy plant there. That was a really sickening smell, particularly in summer.

[Bobcat]

The Tacoma smell was not from the Asarco smelter, but from the pulp mills on the tide flats. The smelter was still running in the mid 1980s and the arsenic in the air around the smelter made your nose itch. I used to bicycle by Asarco and you could feel the pollution. It was said that the old guys who worked at the smelter for years sweated out arsenic that turned their underwear green.

Within ten years, the smelter was shut down and the tall stack was taken down with a controlled explosion:

[wizbang 13]

My son lived a few blocks from the old Asarco.
He had his soil tested…. wound up hand digging his small backyard out 6 inches deep and replacing it with “Tagrow”(Tacoma grow) which is made from and smells like poo ,for months. But he documented the whole thing, had the soil retested, and it was a profitable selling point when the time came.

[birlinn]

I sometimes get a whiff from the local whisky distillery in easterlies- it's about 250 metres away..
There are worse smells...

[Jack Loudon]

Humboldt County CA (where I grew up) had two pulp mills on the sandspit west of Eureka. Of course they smelled bad, but they also discharged 40 million gallons per day of untreated wastewater into the Pacific. In the 1980's, surfers were affected by the smelly discolored seawater, and complained publicly. Lawsuits were filed, and the ensuing fines, regulations, and intense scrutiny lead to the closure of the mills 10 years later. So it's not just air quality that's affected.

[Bobcat]

I flew in a float plane up part of the inside passage in 1987 and you could see the plumes from BC pulp mills flowing into the water and then fanning out into mile long plumes.

[wizbang 13]

Missoula use to have a higher lung cancer rate than LA. Due to a pulp mill, Hoerner Waldorf, teepee burners, car exhaust, home wood stoves, and a brutal chronic weather inversion in the Missoula valley. In the late 60s and early 70s, my mother and some friends formed a group called GASP - Gals Against Smog and Pollution. Its goal was to try to force Hoerner Waldorf to conform to pollution laws already on the books.

I might have posted photos before, but they were featured in an issue of Nat'l Geo. My mother always wore a patriotic looking blue and red dress to public meetings, and asked the women all to wear skirts while protesting - to not be labeled as hippies.

Photos from the Nat'l Geo issue:

BRAVO!
Wonderful.

[LeeG]

I don't know about Tacoma, but on the way into Port Townsend yesterday (17th Annual Strange Brewfest) the PT Paper Company mill aroma was alive and well.

just what I was thinking of

[Ralphie Boy]

I lived for a time on the west side of Santa Cruz (Westside is bestside!). Nearby were two small factories: Lipton’s and Juicyfruit (gum).

Depending on the time of day you could either smell Onion Soup or Peppermint.

[P B Campbell]

When I grew up here in WV, it seems as if every stream, creek, and river below 3000 feet was polluted from coal mining. A nice rusty orange coloration and a putrid near vomit inducing odor, completely devoid of any life forms. We also had the great fortune of a coal fired power plant to the north and a Union Carbide plant to the south. Fresh air or clean water was a fantasy.
Florida however had the best air pollution I've ever experienced in the form of an Orange processing plant. When the harvest happened that place operated 24 hours a day and the surrounding area smelled an intense orange marmalade smell. South of there was a spice plant that if you happened by when they were processing the "warm" spices (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc.) was quite delightful.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

In James Clavell’s novel “Noble House” set in 1963 Hong Kong, the smell that meets an airline passenger as she steps out of a newly arrived aircraft is described as “The smell of money”.

The residents of that fair city used to call it “The smell of the Kai Tak Nullah”.

Sewage in a land locked backwater.

[Breakaway]

Growing up in Queens, NY, I could alternately smell the smell of bread baking at the Silvercup bread factory or the low tide reek of the East River.

Kevin


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[Breakaway]

Missoula use to have a higher lung cancer rate than LA. Due to a pulp mill, Hoerner Waldorf, teepee burners, car exhaust, home wood stoves, and a brutal chronic weather inversion in the Missoula valley. In the late 60s and early 70s, my mother and some friends formed a group called GASP - Gals Against Smog and Pollution. Its goal was to try to force Hoerner Waldorf to conform to pollution laws already on the books.

I might have posted photos before, but they were featured in an issue of Nat'l Geo. My mother always wore a patriotic looking blue and red dress to public meetings, and asked the women all to wear skirts while protesting - to not be labeled as hippies.

Photos from the Nat'l Geo issue:

And, the first issue with Gilbert Grosvenor as editor, to boot!



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[rbgarr]

A Ralph Nader group (headed by James Fallows in particular) wrote a book called 'The Water Lords" in the 70s about factory water pollutions and it leaned heavily on the example of the Union Camp pulp and paper mill on the Savannah (Georgia, USA) River. My f-i-l and his wife became directors of environmental issues for the plant shortly thereafter and worked hard until their retirement to change effluent and air quality concerns, with more success than recognized. RE air quality at that type of mill even a few parts per million of sulfide gas are distinctly noticeable in the atmosphere (I worked there for ten years in the 80-90s). But he'd worked there for decades by that time and the improvement was noticeable. Growing up in the 50s my wife knew that he'd always bought the very cheapest car off the cheapest lot whenever he needed a replacement. The sulfide of the 40s-60s ate the paint off any car anyone parked at the mill. Not so by the time I was there.

[Paul Pless]

In 1963 it was possible that the smell inside the aircraft was worse, after it made that last turn between the clotheslines on the roof

after flying one of the greatest 'approaches' in a big ass jet airliner

[Paul Pless]

^ even better-er after dark

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

https://gwulo.com/node/6179

You knew that was coming.

I need to go back and update some links.

Here’s a cockpit view, the checkerboard is 3:10-3.23

https://youtu.be/lx3Ccs5tKfw

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

I grew up in Burien, which is located south of Seattle. We could always tell when a Southerly was blowing by the smell.