Utility workers in Cedar Rapids say they want to be good neighbors. So, they're nearing completion of a more than $6.5 million Odor Control Project.

People in one neighborhood tend to smell something unpleasant a couple times a month.

"Probably two to four times a month, when the wind is going that way,” Josh Brummer said.

Josh Brummer and his neighbors live just north of the Water Pollution Control Division. The smell is from waste water, specifically it's a hydrogen-sulfide odor.

"Sometimes you'll smell it coming down the road coming from work. Other days you won't smell until you get in here,” Brummer said. “Not too terrible. It would be nice if we didn't get it at all, that's for sure."

The city is working to solve the smell.

"Eliminating odors is not feasible but controlling them is,” Utility Director Steve Hershner said.

Cedar Rapids hopes to control the odor with the addition of two more bioscrubbers. The scrubbers also contain lava rock that's sprayed. The other part of the project includes adding trickle filters.

"During maintenance activities we'll have more capacity then to divert air to get treatment, where we struggle with that in the past,” Hershner said.

The facility is about 40 years old. And the city says it'll take a few ways to absorb all the odors.

"When it started there wasn't too much attention to odor control but its something that's adapted and added on as we go forward,” Hershner said.

Which neighbors welcome. They hope to start noticing a lack of odors soon.

“I think that would be pretty good. It would be nice,” Brummer said.