The people of the Heart of Camden feared to speak up against the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) and others in power. Many felt as if they were being left in the dark with regards to the major industrial changes that were being made to the community they lived in. After sweeping changes were made, residents felt like they were only collateral damage in exchange for the wants of the overpowering industries.

Residents of the Heart of Camden were immune to the smell from so many years of exposure, but were reminded constantly that there was a problem. A long time resident Carlos Morales recalls in an interview his schoolyard days where children who were bused in from different communities couldn't stand the smell. The CCMUA tried to correct the smell using an orange scented soap spray. This did not correct the smelled, the air was a mixture of sewage with a hint of orange.

Back around the 1990s and 2000s, the CCMUA had open air storage. Trucks would line up outside the facility, filled with sewage and wait. This would pollute the air even more, stinking it up with the dirty smell. Another big problem was the fact that these huge trucks were driving through such a small residential area. The trucks barreled down the street so fast, that one of the ceilings in the school started to cave in. Having these types of trucks around were extremely dangerous to all residents. As said by Donna Helms in this interview, trucking would bring "unfortunate things" like "prostitution, for example." To combat these problems, the surrounding community filed and phoned in plenty of complaints. Along with the SCCA and local government , they were able to reroute some of the traffic, build gardens to spruce up the area, and use covered storage for the trucks.

Residents of the area, breathing in the odor on a regular basis, began to realize that their sense of smell was being damaged. Donna Helms remembered a conversation with one of her colleagues where they talked about how someone had a gas leak in their house and they could not notice the issue because breathing in the polluted, foul smelling air had damaged the resident's sense of smell. Additionally, children in the area were negatively impacted by the polluted air. In a conversation with Donna Helms, she recalled going to the local public school to visit and check in on how the smell affected the children. She asked the nurse how the children fared with the poor air, and the nurse showed Helms a closet full of inhalers. Almost all the children in the area had breathing problems because of the poor air conditions.