• A Rose By Any Other Name

Shakespeare's famous line from Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet discusses the family name of her true love (at 13, har har, but I digress) suggesting that a rose would smell just as sweetly even if it were called a sewage lift station... or sort of.

Now that all of you are lost in my hodgepodge thought pretzel above, let me tell you what the heck it is I'm mumbling about.

Sewage lift station on Mission Trail, about a mile north of the cityline with LE.

There is a sewage lift station on Mission Trail across from Lakeview Chapel, that can be quite odoriferous at times. 

This ten cent word is worth every penny.

Its job is to make sure all that goes down local toilets makes it to the processing station at EVMWD headquarters in Lake Elsinore. 

I'd heard that there was an issue many times, but never smelled it when driving in the area. In my lifetime I can think of three places where there would ALWAYS be a rank odor.

First was when I lived near Little Mountain in San Bernardino. 

The rest of my family lived in Riverside at that time (we're talking about the mid to late '70s) and when returning from a family visit, traveling east on the 91, crossing the 10, there was a wall of stench that greeted all comers to the area.

The second one that comes to mind was the baseball park we played at in Dana Point in the early '80s. 

It was directly next to the sewage treatment plant. Like Barry Bonds sending one out to McCovey Cove, I hit more than one left handed homer into that compound (sans fans equipped with butterfly nets). The locals called it Stinky Field, because there wasn't a moment when the place didn't smell like an outhouse after a monster truck rally.

The third such predictable smell in my lifetime was while driving north on the 15 between Norco and Ontario. 

It was cow city, and my grandmother, who grew up on a ranch in Texas, would tell us whippersnappers, "Smells like money to me."

Back to the local issue on Mission Trail. 

I got an email suggesting that I check it out up close. 

If you get a chance please drive along, with your windows down Mission Trail in the AM. Near the EVMWD lift station, across from Lakeview Chapel the air is third world. [...] Something needs to be fixed in that system, benjo ditches in Japan don't smell this bad.

Expanding your vocabulary one word at a time.

I took the challenge and headed to the area at about 7:00am. I rolled my window down as I was driving north on Mission Trail and passing the Elks Lodge. I kept sniffing and sniffing and couldn't smell anything abnormal.

At first I thought I detected a smell similar to what can be at the river (somewhat musty), but I attributed that to the very hot weather and the lake being a couple of miles to the north.

I still didn't smell anything as I got near Lakeview Chapel, but I stopped and parked in their parking lot. I started walking, but still wasn't sure that I could smell this infamous stench... but after another dozen steps I ran into the first wave.

This is a Bitmoji image, not a WR cartoon.

Without the advantage of actually having smelled a corpse flower, I'm thinking this miasmic nose-full could win a blue ribbon over said plant if county fairs had an effluvium category. 

Taking a whiff of this flower isn't on any iteration of my bucket list.

Suffice to say, I would not want to live in the path of that nose crippling funk. 

I asked George Cambero, member of the board of directors for EVMWD, about it. 

They are aware of the issue, and are working on it. Like any other government entity, they can't just act without going through all the hoops first. I was hoping for a more definitive answer, but there just isn't one at the moment.

If you have concerns about this, or any other issue that involves EVMWD, be sure to file your complaint with them. I was told that they also monitor Elsinore Eddie's facebook page, and take all feedback seriously.

link to Elsinore Eddie's facebook page

In the meantime, keep the windows up as you're driving by, and if you must walk it, consider running. ☺

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"Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting."
– Karl Wallenda

Wildomar Rap is content with waiting if "being on a tightrope" is the alternative.

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