DETROIT – Behind the fence at the Hudson’s site there’s a lot of digging going on, and that digging is exactly what’s causing a horrible smell around the site.
People around the area in Downtown Detroit said it smells bad, really bad, thanks to groundwater encountered while crews were digging on the site.
"Smells like rotten eggs,” Joel Viele said. “It smells like something is rotting.”
Viele said the smell has been lingering for days. On a scale from 1-10 of how bad the odor is, he rated it a seven.
“Like, 10 being the worse and one being the best, it’s a solid eight," Ashley Schocker said.
Rae Garmany agrees that the odor is gross, saying it smells “like boiled eggs. Rotten eggs. Rotten Boiled eggs.”
“It’s noticeable when you’re in your car and that’s when you know it’s bad. Like, when you’re driving up you can smell it,” Garmany said.
Bedrock Detroit, who is in charge of the building project, said the smell is coming from groundwater that had traces of sulfur.
The company released a statement regarding the odor:
“While drilling for our deep tower caissons at the Hudson’s site we encountered groundwater that contains trace sulfur, which is contributing to an intermittent smell around the site. The water is being pumped off the site and the smell should be completely gone once we complete drilling for the last caisson in January.”