DUBLIN (KRON) — A construction project to reinforce a major sewer main in Dublin has some people in the area crying foul.

A method being used by the utility is causing a smell, but not one normally associated with sewage.

The project is a big one. Crews working for the Dublin-San Ramon Services District are rehabbing 8,000 feet of concrete pipeline that’s 50 years old and showing signs of its age.

The sewer main carries half of the city’s wastewater to a treatment plant in Pleasanton.

Instead of digging it up and replacing the concrete pipe, they are using a new method that can create a weird smell in the air.

And that smells nothing like you would expect.

“Smells like plastic curing,” Project Manager Jaclyn Yee said.

That’s because they are lining the pipe with a flexible styrene resin fabric that once cured, will seal the pipe from the inside.

“It’s basically like putting in a brand new pipe on the inside, which is cured if it becomes very hard, even if the outside of the pipe were to fail,” Yee said. “The inside of the pipe is going to be perfectly fine.”

But that curing process is what causes the plastic smell, which the project engineer says isn’t hazardous.

But they are advising people to close up their doors and windows if they smell it. While smelly, this method of construction is both cheaper and faster digging up the old pipe and replacing it with a new one.

While smelly, this method of construction is both cheaper and faster than digging up the old pipe and replacing it with a new one.

“It takes a couple of day’s convenience or putting in the pipe that’s going to last for 50 years, and we’re also not excavating the road as much which would take months,” Yee said.

A couple of residents to called the utility and complained about the smell on Tuesday when the liner was being installed and cured.

Others say they are happy to hear the construction taking place on busy Village Parkway will be quicker because of the stinky work.

There’s no odor in the air but that doesn’t mean the stinky part of the job is over.

These crews will be installing that pipe liner starting Thursday so that plastic smell may be present through the weekend.

But that part of the job will be on Village Parkway south of Dublin Boulevard in a non-residential part of town.

The rest of the project, which is not expected to stink, is expected to be complete by the end of October.

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