Over the last week or so many residents have been reporting to the Council’s Linea Verde portal and the Councillor for Camposol, Silvana Buxton a noxious smell pervading the urbanisation which was described variously as acidic, petrol, cat urine, gas amongst others but there was no clue as to where it emanated.

The Councillor for Camposol asked questions of the Municipal Protección Civil who travelled the urbanisation trying to sniff out the culprit and came to the conclusion that surrounding agriculture was the source. This was disputed by many long term residents who have not experienced the smell in previous years, so the Councillor enrolled the help of Head of the Council’s Environmental department who made some enquires and contacted a number of local farmers and the mystery seems to have been solved.
Many of the farmers particularly between Camposol and Cañadas del Romero have this year been replacing their traditional crop of Almond and Olive which need little maintenance or fertilization with “Green Leaf” crops, lettuce, broccoli etc, possibly because of government subsidies (similar some years ago to the UK and rape seed oil).
These new crops need annual fertilisation - in the UK bovine based fertiliser or manure is usually utilised but here a mixture of pig and chicken waste is concocted and spread on the land creating the unique aroma and although the smell usually dissipates within 2 or 3 days but with so many farms surrounding the urbanisation there is some obvious overlap at this time of the year.