WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Something smells rotten in Yolo County, and the stench has some neighborhoods in West Sacramento concerned it could be a gas leak.

It turns out, that smell is a lingering effect of the winter’s strong storms.

“If you don’t want that smell to penetrate your house you have to close your doors and lock all the windows up,” said Robert Mistler.

People were wondering what the source of that smell is, so we went to an expert for an explanation.

Jeffery Stoddard with the Department of Fish and Wildlife says it’s coming from the Yolo Bypass. The nature preserve between Davis and Sacramento flooded this winter for the first time in more than four years.

“Since all the water came on at once it all went off at once and so instead of getting a little bit of smell we’re getting a lot of smell,” he said.

He says the odor is actually organic material naturally breaking down in the environment.

“A big event like this you get a lot of sulfur being released by bacteria. That smell is incredibly powerful and it only takes a little tiny bit of it for you to be able to smell it,” he said.

The odor has been so strong in past years, even the city of West Sacramento has a site called “What’s That Smell?”

“A lot of people smell that rotten egg smell, the sulfur smell, and that causes alarm,” he said.

Now residents are relieved to hear it’s just nature, and not a gas leak or a body.

“Since it’s that ecosystem problem, we’re just going to have to deal with it until nature takes it’s course,” he said.