Brand-New Sewer System Pumps Raw Waste Into Newfoundland River For A Week - CBC

[hatrack]

Oops.

An environmentally friendly sewer system installed to serve the central Newfoundland towns of Glenwood and Appleton was anything but good to the environment recently, spewing raw sewage into the nearby Gander River for a week.

The town council said it fixed the problem that was causing the untreated sewage to escape into the river late Monday night with a borrowed pump. Before that, however, broken pumps had allowed raw sewage to pour into the famous salmon habitat, the Gander River, for seven days.

The $3-million system is not even a year old. It was built to replace two older facilities and provide an alternative to discharging raw sewage into the river. The system is an engineered wetland process, which uses an open bog to treat the waste more naturally.

Fishing guide Harold Pelley makes a living from the river. He resides just up the hill from where sewage, murky with toilet paper and debris, had been pouring from a manhole into the water.

EDIT

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/03/18/sewage-glenwood.html

[elehhhhna]

1. Are those pumps from the co. Jebbie's tied to?

[Strelnikov_]

2. Shit happens

Wonder what happened to the high water alarm (to signal pump failure) that a system in the US would have required. Also, a US lift station of this magnitude would have required dual pumps, with a portable being available on call.

I can see a day or so, but a week? Somebody just didn't give a shit.