11.06.08
Thursday Headlines: Sinkhole Swallows Car After Water Main Break
Work crews in San Diego repaired a ruptured water line Thursday morning that sent muddy water flowing through a neighborhood. The broken water main forced evacuations, flooded homes and caused a sinkhole that swallowed a parked car. The mishap left dozens of homes without water service overnight.
Headlines
In Western Pennsylvania, the tiny borough of West Leechburg plans to borrow more than its annual budget to separate the sanitary and storm sewers in the last area of the borough where they still are combined. The council is scheduled to vote next week on borrowing $400,000, which would cover half the cost of the $800,000 project.
A Wednesday morning water main break in Coloroado Springs, Colorado caused some headaches with 18 homes losing water. The situation is expected to get worse for the city temperature changes comdined with aging pipes is expected to lead to more breaks.
An assisted living facility in Lincoln, Illinois cleared a major hurdle for a proposed expansion project Monday when the City Council approved changes to a sewer upgrade.
Before Duluth, Minnesota can build its next underground holding tank for sanitary sewer overflows, it’s got some cleanup to do. The chosen site has been found to contain lead, diesel compounds and selenium that exceed state health risk standards.
Sewer Rate News
Sayre, Pennsylvania
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
10.28.08
Tuesday Headlines: Redding, California Permanently Shuts of Water Main
The water main that blew a muddy geyser through the pavement of a road in Redding, California on Sunday will be permanently shut off. In August, the same 18-inch diameter pipe ruptured beneath a lawn on a high school campus.
Headlines
The people who live next to the sewage pump station in Hermitage, Pennsylvania where about 500,000 gallons of backed-up sewage leaked into the Shenango River earlier this month wanted answers Monday when they went to a meeting of the board that oversees the sewage system.
A water main break closed the eastbound lanes of busy thuroughfare in Denver early this morning. A 12-inch main broke at about 3:15 a.m. this morning and forced repair crews to close the busy road.
City crews in Kingston, New York, worked Monday to repair a sewer line that burst not far from the site of a 2004 collapse that sent raw sewage into the streets and front lawns. The sewer line which broke was about 100 years old.
Some Boulder, Colorado residents were without water Monday afternoon because of a main break. Drivers experienced detours and delays as an intersection was closed to repair the main.
Sewer Rate News
Clinton, Iowa
Menasha, Wisconsin
Rapid City, South Dakota
Sparta, Michigan
09.25.08
Thursday Headlines: Pipe Break Leads to 25 Foot Sinkhole in West Chester, Penn.
A 12-foot-deep sinkhole opened up in West Chester, Pennsylvania on Wednesday after a broken stormwater main caused saturated soils to collapse. Workers with the borough’s Public Works Department called in a pipeline construction company to handle the emergency after the sinkhole expanded to 25 feet long by 12 feet across.
Headlines
In Maryland, Anne Arundel County health officials have ordered Bear Neck Creek in Edgewater closed and warn against direct contact with the water. The closure was ordered because of a wastewater overflow Wednesday in a nearby sewer collection system.
Michigan’s environmental chief warned the Detroit City Council on Wednesday that continued delays in approving a $600-million tunnel system to store sewage and storm runoff during heavy rain could cost ratepayers an extra $100 million in interest on construction bonds and put the city in violation of its water pollution permit.
Roughly 21,000 gallons of sewage spilled into Pinehurst Lake on Tuesday after a force main broke in Carthage, North Carolina.
Crews in Colorado Springs, Colorado are working to divert the water in Sand Creek away from a bank that has been badly eroded by recent storms, coming dangerously close to exposing a sewage pipe. Since 2000, Colorado Springs Utilities has spent $100 million dollars on their wastewater collection system.
Sewer Rate News
Camp Verde, Arizona
Colfax, California
Shafer, Minnesota
Sheffield, Alabama
07.17.08
Thursday Headlines: Hefty Price Tag for Peoria CSO Fix
Protecting the Illinois River from combined sewer overflows (CSOs) could cost the city of Peoria, Illinois up to $262 million. By the end of this year, the city must formulate a plan to reduce its CSOs enough to satisfy the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the EPA. Peoria is one of more than 700 U.S. communities that have sewer systems which combine wastewater and stormwater.
Headlines
In California, a sewage spill closed a portion of San Clemente Beach. The spill occurred when a piece of debris got stuck in a valve at the sewage treatment plant.
Residents of some Columbia, Missouri neighborhoods could be without clean water until Friday morning, depending on the results of bacterial contamination tests. A precautionary boil order was issued Wednesday morning after a 16-inch water main broke late Tuesday night.
The town of Lake Hamilton, Florida will have a new water treatment plant within two years thanks in part to a $2.4 million loan and a $923,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In Elizabeth, Colorado, a water main break Tuesday night caused the town to lose approximately one million gallons of water. Residents had to rely on bottled water, and businesses had no other choice than to close down for the day.
Sewer Rate News
Manassas Park, Virginia
Marysville, California
Milford, Massachusetts
Rockport, Pennsylvania
06.25.08
Wednesday Headlines: Water Main Break Floods UC-Riverside
Lights were on and classes resumed in all but one University of California-Riverside building Tuesday, one day after a broken water main flooded three buildings and led to power outages in 12 buildings. School officials are concerned about mold from all the water.
Headlines
A large water main break flooded the Carnegie Science Center’s SportsWorks building this afternoon in Pittsburgh, and the building along with its Titanic Artifact Exhibition will be closed tomorrow.
In another Pennsylvania story, water service was cut to about 40 residences in Muhlenberg Township after a 36-inch water main broke near Route 61.
File this under “you can’t make this stuff up,” in Colorado a squirrel zapped by a power line disrupted electricity to an Upper Thompson Sanitation District lift station Sunday morning, causing a 30,000-gallon sewage spill into Lake Estes.
Sewer Rate News
Charleston, West Virginia
Collier, Florida
Romeo, Michigan
06.20.08
Friday Headlines: Second Sewer Overflow This Week for MD Community
In Salisbury, Maryland, the Wicomico River remains under a health advisory after 48,140 gallons of partially treated wastewater overflowed from a wastewater treatment plant effluent manhole. The spill was the second this week and the fourth overall this year.
Headlines
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer District announced it had a sewer overflow volume of 2.9 billion gallons between June 7th and 15th.
Denver Water crews worked into the early hours Friday to repair a ruptured 12-inch water main that left an 18-foot-wide sinkhole on South Monaco Parkway causing major traffic problems.
A sewer repair project that started in mid-May will stretch throughout Portland, Oregon’s downtown core for the next seven months at a cost of $5.8 million.
Sewer Rate News
Amherst, Massachusetts
Norco, California
Oahu, Hawaii
05.06.08
Tuesday Headlines: Water Main Breaks in D.C.
In the nation’s capital, crews are working to fix six water main breaks throughout southeast Washington. (photo courtesy of WRC-TV).
Headlines
In St. Cloud, Florida, crews are working to fix a water main break that has shut down part of a busy road. A pipe under a road broke overnight and has forced a road to be closed. Hundreds of people will have to boil their water before using it.
A section of road has been closed for over a month in Perrysburg, Ohio because of a sinkhole. It formed when a cap on an underground pipe gave way causing the stone between the pipe and the pavement to cave.
A new wastewater treatment plant is up and running in Liberty, Indiana.
A new water reclamation facility has begun operations in Colorado Springs.
Sewer Rate News
Frostproof, Florida
Live Oak, California
Madison, Alabama
Massilon, Ohio
05.05.08
Monday Headlines: Poll Shows Polluted Drinking Water Top Concern
Headlines
A second sewer plant may be on tap for the area southeast of St. Joseph, Missouri.
Leaders from the Florida Keys city of Marathon are trying to persuade federal lawmakers to help pay for an $85 million advanced wastewater installation project.
Hemet, California is seeking federal help in pursuing two ambitious water projects that could open up land for commercial and residential development and help secure long-term water supplies for the city.
In Kentucky, the Princeton Water and Wastewater Commission will use close to a million dollars in state funding to further city water and sewer projects already in progress.
Sewer Rate News
Clark County, Nevada
Glenwood Springs, Colorado
Martinsville, Virginia
Worcester, Massachusetts
03.28.08
Friday Headlines: Repairs to Downtown Cleveland Water Main Delayed
Yet another problem resulting from the big downtown water main break in Cleveland on March 6, a clogged wastewater sewer leading to the East Interceptor has delayed repairs. (picture courtesy of WKYC)
Headlines
Colorado Springs needs $65 million in upgrades to its water system over the next decade.
Senator Sherrod Brown will be in Perrysburg, Ohio today to detail Ohio’s decaying infrastructure–including water and sewer infrastructure.
A fight is brewing in Austin, Texas over construction of a new water treatment plant
Portland, Oregon’s already high water and sewer bills may rise much more, after the city lost an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals
03.20.08
Thursday Headlines: Sinkhole Costs State DOT $1 Million
The Colorado Department of Transportation spent more than $1 million to repair Interstate 25 last month after a main owned by Denver Water burst and opened a 16-foot sinkhole. (photo courtesy of Rocky Mountain News)
Headlines
The city of Burkburnett, Texas is working hard to clean up a sewage spill that began Sunday
Some suburban Philadelphia residents are getting help from the state government to pay for public sewer in their township, but the money will only make a dent in their bills, which could still reach $17,000 each
Springfield, Georgia has been awarded a $5.4 million Georgia Fund loan from the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority for sewer system infrastructure improvement
In North Carolina, the wastewater treatment plant at the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport has failed four state water-toxicity tests in the last four months
