'Smell police' sniff first, ask questions later

ON NOSE: Keith Peacock is quick to get on the scent when a bad pong is reported.

Some call them the smell police, the team of six at the Hawke's Bay Regional Council who protect the environment through legislation, the resource management act - and their noses.

Each year the Pollution Response and Enforcement team investigates about 400 odour complaints, directed by compliance team leader Keith Peacock, who has been sniffing out solutions for 26 years.

Some complaints require thorough investigation, while others can be solved as simply as "putting out the fire".

Team members go through a one-day process of calibration to determine the threshold of their nose and where it sits on a scale.

Compliance manager Wayne Wright no longer ventures into the field, but when his nose was calibrated in 2008 it was called "the perfect nose", meaning it was "bang in the middle" of the scale.

"The scale is a tool to assess if the odour is an issue" he said. "We know what level [the officers] are on, so we can judge the intensity of the odour and put the right weighting on it."

This also means when a more serious, or pungent, problem arises, two officers with different thresholds on the scale can provide a more accurate assessment.

Complaints change with the seasons; winter's big issue are offensive fire odours, while spring brings with it a host of spray complaints.

The wind can wreak havoc on odours and assessments year round.

But the team doesn't just investigate problems that kick up a stink; the aim is also to educate, with prosecution as the last measure of enforcement.

The team informs individuals and sector groups about odour pollution, by building a rapport with dairy farmers, orchardists, and the community.

"We teach them about laws they could accidentally be breaking," Mr Peacock said.

Mr Wright believed: "We don't prosecute as many people as other regional councils because we have such a good community in Hawke's Bay.

"We're here to protect the environment, and it's more than a river, or the sky, it's the people living in it," he said.

While Mr Peacock's nose has been subjected to putrid odours like that of rotting pigs, it has also made him more aware of odours within his daily life.

"In the morning I'll arrive at work and smell something and think, 'is that something I need to check out?'" he said.

For Mr Wright, knowing where his nose's threshold is, is "just like knowing your cholesterol".

The pollution response and enforcement team has a 24/7 hotline, with a staff member always on the other end.

If you smell something funny, call 0800 108 838.