Odor in the court: Hydrogen sulfide corrodes Dodge County pipes

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The smell is foul enough to gag a juror.

And its constant presence has forced Dodge County to pay $848,911 to replace every pipe in its 12-year-old courthouse building in Juneau.

“This is all so unusual,” said Russ Freber, Dodge County director of physical facilities. “I don’t know why it happened to our courthouse, but I hope it never happens again.”

Lynn Hron, the county’s clerk of courts, in the fall began noticing a rotten egg smell in random areas of the building and at different times of the day. In January, she said, the smell got so bad a juror and employee left the building because they were on the verge of throwing up.

“We would all just go, ‘What in the heck is this?’” Hron said.

It turned out to be hydrogen sulfide corroding the buildings pipes to the point that they looked like they were 200 years old, Freber said.

“I spent one weekend actually inserting smoke into the pipes to see if there were any openings,” he said. “I took a closer look and found there were a lot of cracks.”

Freber said he then placed six cameras along the pipes and estimated that 95 percent of the system was compromised. Based on those findings, the county hired Waukesha-based Engineering Concepts Inc. to determine the cause.

Engineers found the hydrogen sulfide. The gas corroded the pipes, breaking them down and leaving pieces clogging the system.

The gas had nowhere to go but into the ventilation system, which distributed the smell throughout the building, said Steven Skattebo, a project engineer with Engineering Concepts.

He said he was shocked by the amount of damage to the pipes.

“This was an unusual level of corrosion,” Skattebo said. “We just don’t see that with pipes as new as they were.”

The engineering team still does not know for certain where the hydrogen sulfide came from, he said, but there are two suspects: the jail kitchen connected to the courthouse or the city’s sewer system.

The kitchen uses a grease interceptor, which is designed to capture most greases and solids before they enter a wastewater disposal system, Freber said. The interceptor’s grease trap was causing gas buildup, he said, which was stuck in the pipes.

The courthouse project will replace all of the cast-iron pipes with PVC, which is resistant to hydrogen sulfide corrosion, Skattebo said.

The construction team from Watertown-based Maas Bros. Construction Co. Inc., which bid $674,000, also will install an aeration system in the grease interceptor to mix more oxygen with the gases and curb the hydrogen sulfide, Freber said.

Freber said there’s a chance the pipes are still under warranty, but the county has struggled to find the overseas manufacturer. For now though, he said, the county is just happy the pipe project is nearing an end and the smell is fading.

“Knock on wood,” Freber said, “but I’m fairly confident the new pipes and preventative steps will stop this problem.”