December 1, 2008
Monday Headlines: City of San Francisco Begins Payouts for Sewage Damage
Nearly five years after San Francisco experienced a storm that overwhelmed its aging sewer system, the city is beginning to pay out millions of dollars in settlements to businesses and homeowners. Businesses affected by the overflow will receive $612,000 from the city of San Francisco. The businesses were inundated by raw sewage in 2004, when stormwater caused it to overflow.
The story from the The San Francisco Examiner goes into further detail.
More than 1,000 miles of brick sewers, many built more than a century ago, carry flushed waste from bathrooms and sinks beneath the surface to treatment plants. The sewers also fill with stormwater during rainstorms, which can overwhelm the system and cause it to overflow.
A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled earlier this year that The City is liable for property damage caused by the toxic sewage that brimmed out of the combined system in 2004.
Headlines
Marion County sewer bills are likely to go up another 50 percent during the next five years — to an average of about $27 a month — to pay for the next phase of a multibillion-dollar effort to overhaul a wastewater system that dumps raw sewage into Indianapolis’ streams and rivers.
Due to Hoboken, New Jersey’s fiscal woes, the North Hudson Sewerage Authority announced it will build one of the four planned pump stations to help with the city’s flooding problem without financial assistance from City Hall. Because of city’s antiquated sewer system, even a short rainfall can result in knee-deep water in parts of the city when the tide is high.
Sunday night’s water main break in Erie, Pennsylvania, brought work crews to East 12th Street for hours and forced motorists to take detours. Water main breaks are more common in colder weather because the air pressure is higher and causes the road to settle on top of the pipe.
Several blocks of Montana Avenue in Billings, Montana were shut down on Saturday after a water main break flooded the street.
Sewer Rate News
Detroit, Michigan
Evansville, Indiana
