Stories indexed with the term ‘sanitary sewer overflow’

Ann Arbor Reports South Industrial Sewer Overflow

The city of Ann Arbor has announced that a sanitary sewer overflow took place on Jan. 28, 2014. According to a press release on the city’s website, the overflow was caused by the break of a 16-inch water main on South Industrial Highway, which caused a nearby sanitary sewer line to break.

Untreated water from the broken sanitary sewer line flowed up to the street via manholes, according to the press release. The untreated water then made its way into the city’s stormwater system, to Malletts Creek and, ultimately, to the Huron River. A report has been made to Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality about the incident, according to the city.

In a conversation with The Chronicle last week, public services area … [Full Story]

Backups: Lawyers, Sewers, Pumps

As part of a city study of Ann Arbor’s sanitary sewer system, a citizens advisory committee met on Jan. 9, 2014. The meeting was about backups – in several different senses.

Johanna Nader teaches a material science class at Slauson Middle School. The class projects were on display at the Slauson media center, where the most recent meeting of the city of Ann Arbor's citizens advisory committee

“Do not touch” reflects the attitude of some Ann Arbor homeowners toward their houses in the context of the city’s footing drain disconnection program. These class projects from Johanna Nader’s material science class at Slauson Middle School were on display at the Slauson media center. That’s where the most recent meeting took place for the city of Ann Arbor’s citizens committee that is advising the city’s sanitary sewer wet weather evaluation study. (Photos by the writer.)

The group’s charge includes making recommendations to the city council about the best way to manage the impact of rainfall on the city’s sanitary sewer system. Flows in the sanitary system are related to wet weather, even though the city has separate pipes for its sanitary and stormwater systems. That’s due to a variety of factors, including cracks in sanitary system pipes. Cracks can allow rainwater to soak into the pipes from above, and groundwater can come in from below.

But the factors that can increase the amount of water in the sanitary system during wet weather also include direct connections from stormwater systems into sanitary pipes. An example is a connection between a footing drain – part of a homeowner’s stormwater system running around the perimeter of basement foundations – and a sanitary sewer pipe. That’s a connection now prohibited by current building code, but still present in an estimated 16,000 houses in Ann Arbor.

If a deluge of water flowing into the sanitary system during a heavy rain becomes large enough, that can lead to two problems: (1) the extra volume can come up through the sanitary pipes in a homeowner’s basement, flooding the basement with a mixture of raw sewage and stormwater; and (2) the extra volume can overwhelm the city’s wastewater treatment facility, leading to the discharge of untreated sewage into the Huron River.

Over a decade ago, the city’s legislative response to this issue was to enact an ordinance that created a program requiring the systematic disconnection of property owners’ footing drains from the sanitary system. The city also created a way to pay for the work that uses funds from two sources – the city’s utility funds, or contributions from the owners of new developments. New developments help pay for the work because the city also created a program requiring that the developer of any new building in the city compensate for the additional load that the new building places on the sanitary sewer system. And the main way that developers choose to mitigate a new building’s added load on the sanitary system is to pay for footing drain disconnections.

So literal backups – of raw sewage in people’s basement, in the past and possibly in the future – were part of the basis for the committee’s work. But the group’s Jan. 9 meeting was devoted to “backups” in other ways as well. Assistant city attorney Abigail Elias presented the group with a couple of different assurances: (1) that the city would back the committee up if a lawsuit were to be filed against its members as a result of their recommendation; and (2) that she felt the city’s footing drain disconnect program had an adequate legal backup.

Meanwhile, rumblings that a lawsuit over the program could be filed continue to percolate to the surface. [Full Story]

Sewage Overflow Reported Near First Sister Lake

The city of Ann Arbor has reported that on the evening of Sept. 20, 2013, it discovered that sewage was coming to the surface and flowing into a drainage swale that leads to First Sister Lake on the city’s west side, and ultimately to the Huron River. According to the city’s press release, the discharge was attributed to an infiltration of tree roots and debris that had caused a sanitary sewer line to clog.

In the description provided in the press release, city crews were notified around 6:30 p.m. Friday evening that a strong smell was coming from behind a shopping complex at Jackson Road and I-94. The amount of the flow was estimated to be comparable to about half the … [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Reports Sanitary Sewer Overflow

The city of Ann Arbor has reported that on the morning of Sept. 16, 2013, “an obstruction of grease and oil caused an 8-inch sanitary sewer line to back up, spilling approximately 100 gallons of raw sewage out of a manhole cover on Pauline Boulevard and into an inlet to the city’s stormwater system.”

According to the city’s press release, a member of the city’s solid waste field services team reported water leaking from a manhole cover on Pauline Boulevard at 10:15 a.m. The 8-inch sanitary sewer line was unclogged by 10:30 a.m. Nearby stormwater catch basins were vacuumed to remove any potential polluted water and sediments, according to the press release, and the incident was reported to the Michigan Dept. … [Full Story]

Sewer Discharge into Huron River Reported

Overflow from the city’s sanitary sewer system was discharged into the Huron River – the result of a clog in the system caused by tree roots in the Nichols Arboretum, according to a city of Ann Arbor press release. [.pdf of city press release] The situation was reported on Thursday afternoon, Aug. 29, when “a sewer odor and some gray pooled water” was reported to the city, flowing overland into the river. The sewer was unclogged later that evening, and a city crew applied lime – a white powdery substance – to the ground to kill bacteria.

In addition, city of Ann Arbor canoe livery trips between Argo and Gallup were halted on Thursday through Friday. Water samples will be … [Full Story]