To: John Michaels and Grace Windhelm, Hampton Community leaders
From: Kurt Pohlig La Fontaine, Canal Odor Control Team
RE: Odor Control
Date: March 7th, 2014

The “Canal Odor Control Team” (COCT) has met several times over the past three months and has considered several solutions to the problem of foul odor coming from the industrial canal located in the town of Hampton.
As you know there have been complaints of foul odor surging from the industrial canal. We members of the COCT have come to believe the odor is coming from the waste put out by several of the food processing factories located directly on the opposite side of the canal from the residential area. Although the factories claim that all of the waste disposed of in the Hampton bay canal is completely bio degradable, we decided to confirm that by checking it for ourselves.
Research
After analyzing the waste put out from Nathans Sea Food Processing and The Hampton Bays Food Processing Station we discovered that only an average of 60% of the waste they emitted was actually bio degradable. After finding out this alarming piece of data we were shocked and notified the proper environmental authorities to discontinue this harmful act. Thanks to the analysis we found out exactly what these processing plants have been disposing of in the canal. Although there was a large amount of food waste there was still a significant amount of non bio-degradable materials, such as contaminated water, plastic, and glass thrown away as well. And as you know, the Hampton Bay canal is connected to the Chesapeake River which leads to the Atlantic Ocean.
Solutions
The COCT discovered that after years of constant disposal of the previously mentioned contaminates are the source of the odor. Upon evaluating the budget and certain environmental factors in Virgina we have come up with two ways to solve this problem.
The Natural Solution:
The natural solution involves surrounding the canal with the Areca Palm. It can survive the climate change in Virginia as well being an effective natural air filter. According to NASA, the Areca Palm filters xylene and toluene from the air. Also at 1.8m in height, the plant will transpire one liter of water per 24 hours, which makes it an effective humidifier.
The manual labor needed to set the plants along both sides of the three mile canal would end up costing about 50-60 thousand dollars, which is significant hit to the budget. $15,000 will be spent on the palms themselves. Each adult Areca Palm cost roughly $30, meaning that we’ll be purchasing 500 plants and distributing them along the canal. Eventually the smell will disappear naturally over the course of 3 months.

The Natural Solution 2.0:
This solution consists of circulating an immense amount of Perch, Bluegills, Hornpout, Largemouth and Smallmouth bass into the canal. These fish are known as “bottom feeders”. A bottom feeder is usually an aquatic animal that feeds on or near the bottom of a body of water. In the aquarium, bottom feeders will "clean up" the tank so we decided to put them to the test on a larger scale