The Plenty River has just “won” the title of Worst Smelling Waterway of the North in annual survey conducted amongst residents living in our nearby suburbs of Melbourne. The title is actually the 13th time the Plenty River has taken the honours, and lengthens the stream’s decades-long rivalry with the equally-pungent Darebin Creek.

The esteemed team of odourologists that conduct the survey each year say the Plenty River’s consistent performance in the rankings is to be admired rather than ridiculed. A spokesperson for the team said, “On the surface level, it’s easy to poke fun at that very pungent stream, but you kind of have to respect it. No matter what people do to try and improve the smell, nothing works. And it’s not like it even has a whole heap of factories and general industry backing onto it like the Merri and Darebin Creeks. Technically, those bodies of water have external help. Whereas the Plenty River stinks it up all by itself.”

But not everyone is in awe of the Plenty River’s consistency, with Greensborough woman Kate Grenville insisting something needs to be done about the problem. She said, “It’s not an honour. It’s a disgrace. Seriously, the only positive I took out of having to wear a mask outdoors in 2020 was that it blocked out some of the smell from that miserable creek when I was walking my dog along the river trail.”

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