COLUMBIA, 12/27/09 (Beat Byte)
-- At their meeting last Monday, Columbia City Council members heard
more bad news about a city sewer system already plagued with charges of
financial mismanagement that purportedly costs City Hall roughly $1.6 million each year.
"A lot of illegal connections to the sanitary sewer" are largely to blame for thirty years of overflowing
city sewer lines that routinely flood residential basements around Columbia, environmental advocate and Columbia Daily Tribune columnist Ken Midkiff (right) told council members.
Roof drains, storm drains, sump pumps and other "inflow
systems" illegally hooked-up to the city sewer -- which is not designed to carry
storm water in addition to sewage -- conspire to fill basements with raw sewage
during storms, said Midkiff, who spoke on behalf of the Sierra Club about a
study the local chapter is conducting.
"Many of the problems that existed in 1976 still exist today,"
Midkiff explained, pointing to "a number of the houses along Sexton Road,
particularly 202 Sexton and surrounding properties, that have reported problems
with backed-up sewage in the basement" for decades.
The problem isn't just confined to older homes, Midkiff
said. Based on Sunshine Law document requests to the city's public works
department, the group found that sewage backups also plague newer homes and
"some public facilities -- the fairgrounds, for example," Midkiff explained.
Though the study is ongoing, it has already identified an
affected area roughly bounded by the I-70 freeway and the Hinkson Creek, Midkiff
said. "There are two and half pages of residences in this area that have sewage
backed up in the basement," he added.
A similar 2007 study conducted by local civil engineering firm
Engineering Surveys and Services found widespread flooding, sewer
backup problems, and "substandard storm drainage" between North 6th and North
7th streets in north central Columbia
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