City staff say air tests found trace chemical but levels far below health thresholds after neighborhood odor reports

Iowa City staff told the council on June 16 that air‑quality testing carried out after neighborhood odor complaints identified a chemical described in the report as "tooling," but at concentrations several orders of magnitude below levels known to harm human health.

City staff thanked the Climate Action Commission and the climate action coordinator for preparing the memo in the council packet and said the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted independent testing and analysis. The staff summary said the detected chemical was found at parts‑per‑billion, not parts‑per‑million, concentrations.

"People were right that they smelled something," a councilor said during the work session, "but it can feel better to know that there was a long term effort to figure out what it was." The council noted the tests linked the odor to a facility different from the Procter & Gamble site discussed during last year’s rezoning debate; staff said Procter & Gamble was not the source in the testing.

Staff said they have met with a company identified as Loperex (a local facility referenced in the packet) to see if operational adjustments could further reduce odors, and that follow‑up with the company’s corporate office was pending. The staff recommended posting the technical report in a public location on the city website and exploring targeted communications to neighborhoods through neighborhood associations and commonly used platforms such as Nextdoor; staff said a citywide mailer would be difficult because the affected area depends on wind direction.

Ending — The council asked staff to consider a public summary or press release and to continue outreach with the company and neighborhood groups; no formal action was taken during the work session.