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The olfactory gland that allows us to smell is located next to the frontal lobe, the brain’s memory bank. It’s no surprise then that the smell – and stigma – of sewage can linger in the mind for years. As New Yorkers go back to treating the Hudson River as the reviled industrial wasteland of yore, Southwest Portland experiences its second sewage spill of the week.

The New York Times yesterday how a fire theoretically caused by an in one of the New York City’s largest wastewater treatment plants unleashed millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the surrounding waterways, hurting local water recreation businesses. On a much smaller scale, a sanitary sewer (a pipe that contains only sewage and not storm water run off) became blocked and 450 to 900 gallons of sewage yesterday into a pond that flows into Cedar Mill Creek in Southwest Portland.

Just as it will take time for New Yorkers to shake off the stigma of a polluted Hudson – again – I wonder how much longer Southwest Portland residents and those involved in building and maintaining buildings in the area will put up with this sh- …situation.

Photo by via Flickr