RIVERSIDE BREAKS ODOR RECORD

by Lisa Dispepsi

  When asked to comment on the River’s Record, Tulsa Mayor Susan Savage coolly replied “What River?”

  But longtime Tulsan Randy Shadle can’t remember such an impressive run: the Arkansas River smelled like pure shit an astonishing 145 days in a row.

  “On those hot days, you could practically taste the sewage,” reminisces Shadle.  As a Brookside homeowner, he knows that the odor penetrates not just a few square miles, but his home, his clothes, his personal effects—even his car.

  “I drove a client to lunch and he thought I had shit myself,” says Shadle.  He works as a landscape consultant for several south Tulsa businesses, most of the unfamiliar with the peculiar scents coming for the river.

  “You get more than used to it.  Like me, I prefer the hamburger-fart smell over the beershits smell anyday,” Shadle says.

  Back before city planners strategically placed a sewage center near Riverside's most active area, Tulsans rarely noticed any smell but magnolia blossoms.  Now methane and sulphur have become part of our city’s aromatic heritage.