KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Update: Contains new information regarding the projected time-table for the lake drainage.
A Valencia golf course lake was partially drained on Monday after numerous complaints from nearby residents about a foul smell that reportedly caused some people to become sick.
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A lake on the Valencia Vista golf course was partially drained after residents from the nearby neighborhood, Valencia Fairways, reported a rancid stench permeating throughout their homes.
“We’ve had some issues with this lake for the past couple weeks,” said Gary Choppé, property manager for Valencia Fairways.
The odor even reportedly caused some residents to become ill.
“It’s nauseating to say the least,” Cathy Freet, a resident of the neighborhood, said in a Facebook post. “It comes in the closed windows and permeates the house so you can’t sleep. You can’t have the (air conditioning) on because that makes it worse.”
Choppé initially believed that the smell was caused by a sewage issue, and proceeded to contact the county. Officials spent four days inspecting the nearby sewage systems, but found no issues.
They then commented to Choppé that the odor smelled like dead fish, not sewage, he said.
“At that point, I actually went over and took a picture of the lake, and noticed it was pretty brown and crusty on top,” Choppé said. “I went over to the golf course, and they were very helpful.”
Officials with the golf course had identified that there was an issue with the lake, and were looking into it, according to Choppé.
“The golf course has been very amenable to getting out there and and doing their work to rectify the situation,” Choppé said.
Choppe went on to file a claim with the Los Angeles County Health Department, as well as contact other agencies, including AQMD and Vector Control.
“They were all very responsive as far as helping us out,” Choppé said. “That led to the process of draining (the lake), and hopefully the smell will go away.”
The lake was only partially drained Monday due to the large amount of water in the lake, according to Valencia Vista officials. Crews are set to continue draining the lake Thursday, with the hope of having the lake completely drained by Friday, according to officials.
Officials with United Pumping Services, the company hired to drain the lake, could not comment on where the water would be dumped due to customer confidentiality.
Ed. Note: Gilbert Bernal contributed to this story.
Report a typo or error, email Corrections@hometownstation.com
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This is not the information I received first hand from LA County Public Works, the Public Health Department and AQMD. You might want to check dates and claims as well as facts. The lake is NOT drained. It was supposed to be drained by Monday, August 6, 2018. I have pictures as of this morning and it looks pretty much the same as the one in my original post. I did include a picture of the lake as of today in that same post. I was contacted by KHTS late last week and was out of town and told them I would call them this week when I returned. A friend sent me this link. This problem has been going on since 2013. There are multiple errors in this article.
Now let’s get to work on draining the odorous national swamp in DC- right up to the top.