Town Investigates Raw Sewage Spill

At Trailer Park

By Andrew Gorosko

Town environmental officials are investigating a raw sewage spill on April 16 at the Meadowbrook Terrace Mobile Home Park that entered a large, marshy wetland next to the trailer park at 55 Sugar Street (Route 302), contaminating that wetland.

Ann Astarita, the town wetlands enforcement officer, said that the owners of the trailer park would receive a notice informing them that the incident was a violation of town wetlands regulations.

After receiving a report of a sewage spill at the trailer park, several town officials responded to the site, which holds spaces for about 60 mobile homes that are connected to the central municipal sewer system.

On arriving, the officials found that raw sewage was rising up through a manhole cover and then draining about 250 feet across the property before entering the nearby wetland, Ms Astarita said.

Apparently, after a mobile home had been removed from the trailer park, the sewer pipe that had linked it to the sewer system had been incorrectly sealed. That faulty seal resulted in a sewage backup in the trailer park’s sewer pipe network, causing the wastewater to reach the ground’s surface at the manhole cover and then drain to the wetland, she said.

Sewage samples were taken at the spill and will be chemically analyzed for the presence of E coli bacteria, fecal coliform bacteria, total nitrogen content, and total phosphorus content, she said.

Ms Astarita said April 22 that she was waiting the chemical test results.

It is unknown how much sewage entered the wetland, she said, adding that the spill apparently began on April 16.

Workers used a suction truck to remove the spilled sewage from the site, she said.

In 2003, the town provided sanitary sewer service to the trailer park via a 2,100-foot-long, two-inch-diameter low-pressure sewer line extended to the site from the intersection of Sugar Street and West Street.

The sewer line was extended to Meadowbrook Terrace because residences at the 12-acre trailer park had longstanding serious waste disposal problems caused by failing septic systems. The three septic systems that had been used by the approximately 60 trailers had needed to be frequently pumped to prevent health hazards from occurring.

Multiple sewage grinder pumps are used at the trailer park to eliminate the need for a costly conventional sewage pumping station.