Sensor data shows the levels of hydrogen sulfide in Kalamazoo. The data comes from the city's sensors and is displayed in near real time for the public to see.

KALAMAZOO, MI -- The city of Kalamazoo is now sharing real-time data about the stink from a gas hanging around some parts of town, though exactly what the readings mean for the health of nearby residents is less clear.

The city and other agencies have been studying the presence of hydrogen sulfide in Kalamazoo for years. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is working on a health consultation focused on the gas and its presence in the city of Kalamazoo, near the municipal wastewater treatment plant and the Graphic Packaging International paper mill in the city’s Northside neighborhood.

“You’ll be able to see al the community sensors and where those odors concentrations are kind of shifting,” Public Services Director James Baker told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette leading up to the dashboard going live. The effort has been in the works for months, and includes data going back to September 2019.

The city of Kalamazoo shared the public URL with MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette on Monday, July 18. The city also recently expanded its network of hydrogen sulfide sensors to connect to the public-facing data dashboard, and is working to collect and analyze data on the toxic gas through its expanding network of smart manhole covers.

The state’s health assessment has been in progress for months, and initial estimates on the timing of its release have been pushed back. The department initially told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette the report was expected to be finished in early January 2022.

Related: State health consultation delayed nearly 6 months, leaving Kalamazoo in fog of uncertainty

Residents have been encouraged to report foul odors to the city of Kalamazoo. The city said it uses the reports to try to identify and address the sources of odors.

The new dashboard tool will allow residents to look at near-real-time data to see how it coincides with the levels of gas the sensors are detecting, Baker said.

The city is looking at hydrogen sulfide sensors at the treatment plant to identify trends, and trying to determine if they are connected to processes at the plant, to make adjustments and mitigate the odors at the plant, Baker said.

The city has sensors at the wastewater plant and at neighborhood locations. They want to work on the any issues identified within the plant to prevent issues outside of the plant, he said.

The data has been released quarterly in the past, but the new real-time dashboard will make it so residents don’t have to wait. The city has used six sensors in neighborhood locations and six at the wastewater plant to track hydrogen sulfide.

The city has expanded its network of sensors that are included in the new dashboard, Baker said.

The five new sensor locations are:

Graphic Packaging also has its own network of 16 monitors covering the factory property. Data from those sensors is not publicly available either in city odor task force documents or the new public dashboard.

Questions about possible health impacts of the gas remain, as local officials wait for the state to finish its health consultation.

“The city is not attempting to make health determinations,” Baker told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette. The city is relying on MDHHS to bring that information together in its health study that has been in progress for nearly a year.

The city does not have a toxicologist to ask, Baker said.

MDHHS Toxicologist Brandon Reid told MLive in October that hydrogen sulfide levels were found below the Environmental Protection Agency’s short-term comparison levels for hydrogen sulfide, for exposures of up to a year.

But the concentrations found do exceed the long-term exposure benchmark set in the EPA’s “reference concentration” of 1.4 ppb, he said. The delayed MDHHS report is expected to cover the concentrations of the gas found in the area of Kalamazoo and what it means for human health.

The city sensors show some monthly averages (based on one-minute data) exceeding 20 ppb. See a spreadsheet from the city for more data here.

The city sensor information only measures hydrogen sulfide, which is easy to do, Baker said. But hydrogen sulfide is not the only chemical present.

Officials also identified Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), Baker said. Sulfur compounds are also not measured or tracked, though they produce a smell, he said. There are many contaminants in the atmosphere, Baker said, and the city is using hydrogen sulfide readings to try to create a process to measure and identify trends.

“This is not the whole picture,” he said. “We’re using the hydrogen sulfide measurement to provide an overall kind of subjective indicator of what would be the objective odor observation.”

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) flew a drone over the wastewater property to measure for hydrogen sulfide and other chemicals to create a 3D model of dispersion over the treatment plant area, Baker said.

The city of Kalamazoo signed a consent to access agreement in mid-May with EGLE’s Air Quality Division to authorize the drone monitoring and sampling for hydrogen sulfide and volatile organic compounds. The drone study took place in May, and the data was shared with the city and MDHHS, EGLE spokeswoman Jill Greenberg told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette. MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette has submitted a request to the city for the data gathered.

All the information the city collects is being shared with MDHHS, EGLE and the city said.

A lot of work has been happening and the city is not done working, Baker said.

When asked about any specific odor threshold the city is fixed on, Baker said each person will have a different odor threshold.

“We’re not going to set a numeric value and say ‘It’s below 10, it doesn’t stink anymore,’” Baker said. “That’s being completely tone-deaf to the issues the community is facing.”

Instead, the city is looking for continuous improvement based on the data, he said, and now the public can check the city and hold them accountable by tracking sensor monitoring data through the dashboard.

“If you live in the community and you are observing odors you think are stronger than the day before, you can look at the sensor readings, trend them, and have positive verification of results,” Baker said.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) says the odor threshold for hydrogen sulfide ranges from .5 ppb to 300 ppb.

Concentrations measured in Kalamazoo exceed the low end of the ATSDR’s odor threshold. Neighborhood sensors show some levels have been at or above 20 ppb.

Graphic Packaging International, which has been identified as a source of elevated hydrogen sulfide levels along with the city infrastructure, is continuing to add oxygen to its process, Baker said, which is meant to prevent hydrogen sulfide generation.

The city is aiming for year-over-year reductions in hydrogen sulfide concentrations, Baker said.

The city’s smart sewer program will also target the gas, Baker said. Some of the smart manhole covers include hydrogen sulfide sensors, as well as flow and level sensors, he said, and city staff are theorizing they can use hydrogen sulfide observations to develop trends on odor and then make adjustments to try to reduce those levels.

“If we can start to develop some trends -- say it’s always high at this manhole or it’s always low or whatever -- then we can attempt to relate that back to industrial discharges,” Baker said.

“We can go back to the industrial customer and ask to manage the flow in a different way,” Baker said, such as putting in new infrastructure.

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