A strong, unpleasant odor hanging over parts of western Roseville and Rocklin this week had many residents holding their noses and wondering where the smell was coming from.

At first, many assumed the nearby landfill in Lincoln was to blame. But officials say their investigation found something very different.

"We can back track where that odor came from, given real-time weather conditions, and that's how we were able to identify the source of this most recent odor event," said Emily Hoffman with the Western Placer Waste Management Authority.

Using weather models and what's called a reverse trajectory tool, investigators traced the source to a farm northwest of the landfill that had recently spread roughly 5,000 pounds of chicken manure across its fields.

"That scent, we found, travele

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