CRWA in the News

Sewage was going into Charles River

Milford Daily News, Thursday, May 1, 2008

MILFORD - The Sewer Department has patched a cracked sewer pipe at the top of Beach Street after engineers last week discovered leaking sewage trickling into the Charles River.

A remote-controlled video camera is set to zip down and around the 50-foot-long pipe today, checking out the temporary fix that Sewer Superintendent John Mainini said succeeded in stopping the leak.

"Contrary to what everyone believes, we don't like overflows and we don't like leaks," Mainini said yesterday. "There's no sewage going into the river now, as of Monday."

While doing mandated stormwater tests last Thursday, engineers from Baystate Environmental Consultants Inc. of East Longmeadow found a 4-inch cast iron pipe poking into the Charles River culvert under the street level.

The pipe was leaking an "illicit discharge," described as ranging from a light cloudy gray to a very dark, almost opaque, black.

Baystate project engineer Tom Jenkins wrote in his report the pipe was stained and had an "intermittent odor" of sewage.

"It was sewage," said Mainini, who hurried down last week with a crew of workers when Baystate made the discovery in the culvert under Main and East Main streets, near Sacred Heart Church.

Independent of Baystate, Mainini took samples which confirmed it, he said.

"It is our opinion that this discharge has been active for the entire period that the Charles River culvert has been in place, about 50 years," Jenkins wrote.

"Eliminating this discharge will be an important step forward for the town of Milford in its efforts to address water quality concerns in the Charles River," Jenkins added.

Mainini said the pipe was the protruding end of an under-drain, which is an old clay pipe with a 5-inch diameter.

The pipe, which has open joints, was used in the early part of the 20th century, set up underneath the original sewer pipes before there were pumps to stabilize the ground and take water away, he said.

It was never removed when the river culvert was built in the 1960s, although the under-drain is no longer used, Mainini said.

The discharge was leaking from it because an 8-inch section of nearby sewer pipe cracked open, Mainini said.

Sewage leaked out of cracked pipe and into the old under-drain, which Mainini said carried it into the culvert.

Water flows through the culvert downstream into the Charles.

Mainini said the sewage leak is unacceptable, and something his crews rushed to fix. "We don't want any going in," he said.

Jenkins noted the flow wasn't enough to do harm.

"It wasn't like it was pouring millions of gallons a day," but it was something that needed to be addressed, he said yesterday.

"I'm glad that it's getting some attention," Jenkins added. "But this is not like earth-shattering news. In any old town there's bound to be things like this that have been done in the past by our ancestors that nobody even knows about. I mean, they're underground."

Mainini said the sewer crew sealed the pipe with a sandbag and air plug, and plugged a hole that had been installed close by in the culvert wall for drainage, as it began to leak when the pipe was plugged.

Sending the video camera with a swiveling head down the sewer pipe on a track, the Sewer Department can determine if any additional work is needed. If not, Mainini said, the temporary fixes can be made permanent.

The 50-foot sewer pipe can be completely repaired using steam and Fiberglas, at an $8,000 cost, Mainini said.

"Nothing's cheap," he said.

If sewage was making its way to the river, that would be a concern for the Milford Water Co., manager Henry Papuga said.

"(But) if there was not millions in gallons, it would not have an impact," he said. "It would not normally affect us unless it was extremely substantial."

Baystate finished fieldwork Thursday on the culvert, after engineers waded up it doing tests with flashlights and water sample kits, checking for enterococcus bacteria.

"It's generally thought of as the new standard if you're trying to test for sanitary waste sewer contamination," Jenkins said.

In his report, Jenkins wrote the 4-inch pipe leaking sewage was "the most disturbing observation" of the culvert.

"In general, we found (it) to be in excellent condition," he wrote.

PDF: Read the culvert report

Highway Surveyor Shelly Leclaire said the testing was mandated by environmental protection agencies about five years ago to check for discharges, like this one, in outlets through town.

"It's an old system, and that's what you end up finding," Mainini said.