Lancaster New Era Lancaster, PA
Ryan Robinson
December 06, 2000 — Two hundred thousand gallons of untreated sewage overflowed in Brownstown last weekend and much of it may have reached the Conestoga River, according to an engineer consultant.
Someone apparently turned off the West Earl Township plant's switches sometime Friday, Nov. 24, said Dennis Michael, project manager for Camp, Dresser & McKee, consulting engineers for the West Earl Sewer Authority.
The spill occurred at four access points to a pipe between 30 and 50 yards north of the Conestoga River, just off School Lane in Brownstown, Michael said.
The plant is on the south side of the river.
The overflow was not discovered until Monday, when the pumps were turned back on, the backed-up line cleared, and workers took away the wastes on the ground.
"Sometime Friday morning, the pumping station quit," Michael said today. "We did not know about it until Monday. We have no idea how or why the pumps were turned off." "Is it serious? Yes," Michael said. "Is it a real health hazard? No."
The pumps have to be turned off and on manually, according to the sewer authority.
The pumping station along Locust Lane near Talmage has been operated by Cawley Environmental Services, Downingtown, for about a year, Michael said.
This week, Michael, local officials and the Department of Environmental Protection are investigating the spill.
An alarm system that normally would dial out to alert someone about a sewage overflow apparently failed to work, Michael said.
"The signal from the pump control panel to the automatic dialer did not transfer for some reason," he said.
No operators are stationed at the small station.
But Wendell Shiffer, chairman of the West Earl Sewer Authority, said today that someone is supposed to check up on the station daily. Apparently a worker was there over the weekend and noted irregularities in monitor readings but did not report the problem, he said.
Shiffer said that litigation by either the sewer authority or DEP "is probable."
Michael explained this morning that after the pumps were turned off, sewage flow backed up in the line with enough pressure that some waste was expelled through four access pipes. Those pipes are used when clogged lines need to be cleaned out.
He said solid waste covered an area about 40 feet in diameter. Thick grasses prevented the waste from being carried farther.
However, much of the sewage that seeped into the ground likely reached the river, Michael said.
"A lot of the solids associated with the waste water were cleaned up by Tuesday by Cawley Environmental."
The Millersville University Campus Weather Service reported that .38 inches of rain fell in central Lancaster County over last weekend.
Shiffer said today that most of the solid sewage was contained to a meadow, where workers raked it into bags for disposal after the problem was discovered Monday. The field was then neutralized with lime, he said, before more rains arrived Wednesday.
He did not dispute that much of the wastes that seeped into the ground could have reached the river.
The station, designed to handle up to 200,000 gallons of sewage a day, currently handles 70,000-100,000 gallons on a typical day.
The overflow occurred at perhaps the lowest spot in West Earl Township, Michael said. No cases of sewage backing up into people's homes or other problems associated with the mishap have been reported, he added.
The pumping station is 35 feet under ground because the pipe must go underneath the river, Michael said.
"We usually have more problems with the river coming in than the sewage going out," he said, adding that he did not recall any major sewage spills at the location since the sewage authority formed in 1986.
Michael said workers this week are attempting to improve the pipe seal where the overflow occurred.
(Staff writer Ad Crable contributed to this report.)
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