Town Hall South—

Grease Blockage Causes Sewage Backup 

By Andrew Gorosko

A heavy buildup of hardened grease within the municipal sewer system caused a sewage backup at the police station in Town Hall South on September 12, resulting in town workers taking steps to limit the damage caused by the incident, according to Public Works Director Fred Hurley.

The police station occupies the upper level of the building at 3 Main Street. The lower level holds offices for the Parks and Recreation Department, the Social Services Department, and the borough government.

Bob McCulloch, Sr, who maintains the building for the town, said the problem was discovered late in the morning, after some sewage started backing up in the police station’s prisoner holding area.

Also, some plumbing fixtures in the police station had started failing to work properly, indicating a problem, he said.

 Mr McCulloch estimated that about 30 gallons of sewage backed up into the building. Workers used a specialized water vacuum to pick up the spilled sewage and then sanitized the premises, he said. Plumbing pipes within the building also were scoured to clear them out.

Overflowing water on the building’s upper level, which spilled out of plumbing fixtures during the incident, damaged some acoustical ceiling tiles at the Parks and Recreation Department offices on the building’s lower level, Mr McCulloch said. That ceiling will be replaced, he added.

Mr McCulloch noted that sewage backups have occurred at the police station in the past, after some prisoners who were being held by police flushed large objects down the toilets in the holding cells.

Mr Hurley said that the September 12 sewage backup at Town Hall South was caused by a blockage of hardened grease in a sanitary sewer manhole located at The Pleasance, a park directly south of Town Hall South.

That grease apparently was gradually discharged into the sewer system by the system’s users along Main Street, upgradient of the manhole, he said. Those properties include eateries, businesses, and residences.

After realizing that the sewage backup in Town Hall South was caused by a buildup of hardened grease in the manhole, town workers and United Water-Suez staffers used a large vacuum truck to clear the manhole of the grease buildup, Mr Hurley said. United Water-Suez operates the sewer system for the town.

The hardened grease had accumulated to the degree that it blocked the normal flow of the sewer line, causing the Town Hall South sewage backup, Mr Hurley said. The grease likely had been accumulating there for a long time before it caused the blockage, he said.

Town Health Director Donna Culbert said that the sewage backup inside Town Hall South was controlled after it was discovered, and did not create environmental conditions requiring health department involvement.

The central sewer system went into operation in 1997. Wastewater is treated a sewage plant on Commerce Road.