Sewer back-ups plague neighborhood
“The investigation is still ongoing as we continue to work to determine which part of the system is/has failed.” — Virginia Cain, Pennsylvania DEP
UPPER POTTSGROVE >> The state’s environmental agency is investigating reports of sewer back-ups that occurred in a string of homes in the Summer’s Grove sub-division this month.
Virginia Cain, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, confirmed the investigation is ongoing.
“DEP received a complaint on this issue on July 18th and responded through an inspection. The investigation is still ongoing as we continue to work to determine which part of the system is/has failed,” she wrote in an email response to a query from The Mercury.
The question of whether the failures are in the street, which makes them the responsibility of the township, or in the individual sewer lines to the homes, is central.
If they are in the street, the township must pay to fix it and may be on the hook
for the homeowners’ repairs as well if the problem in the street was the cause of the failures in the home systems.
If the problems are coincidentally all happening in the same neighborhood at the same time to different homes, the repair costs are on the homeowners to bear.
The sewer laterals “are owned by the homeowners and as such, the homeowners are responsible for maintaining them,” Cain explained.
“The laterals from each home in the subdivision tie into a common low pressure force main. This common low pressure force main is publicly owned and maintenance is the township’s responsibility,” she wrote.
“The continued investigation is to determine if the sewage/gray water contamination is a result of privately owned lateral failure or the result of the publicly owned common force main failure,” Cain wrote.
Summer’s Grove homeowner Gerald Raynor is pretty sure he knows the answer.
On July 20, he contacted The Mercury in an email stating “sewage pipes have ruptured at three properties on Autumnview Lane and at least one on Spring Hill Lane in the last couple of months. Grinder pumps have failed at several properties, including two on Autumnview Lane,” he wrote, listing two addresses.
“The Upper Pottsgrove Police and DEP were called by residents on Thursday, July 18, when methane gas and flowing greywater was observed in a storm drain on Autunmview Lane. The DEP call center stated there is likely a blockage within the townships that is causing excess pressure on the system. Methane gas can also be smelled coming from storm drains on Spring Hill Lane and Kummer Road,” Raynor wrote.
He provided a timeline of blown sewer laterals dating back to June, as well as photos and reports of “greywater” in storm drains and the “smell of sewage” at various homes and storm drains.
“Greywater” is the term used for the water that comes from washing machines and dishwashers and is disposed of through a home’s sewer pipes.
Raynor reported that calls to the township resulted in declarations that it was a homeowner problem, not the township’s.
A call to Upper Pottsgrove Township Manager Michelle Reddick revealed she is on vacation this week. A statement about the sewer problems that was to be provided by township secretary Linda Coleman had not been delivered by press time.
A call to Upper Pottsgrove Sewer Committee Chairman John Bealer was also not returned before press time.
But Raynor, whose own system backed up on July 23, says area plumbers have already diagnosed the problem, and it’s not a half dozen individual home systems all failing at the same time.
“Two plumbers (Phil Mack and Bartman’s Plumbing) refused to come to my house until they had confirmation Upper Pottsgrove Township addressed the issue with the main sewer line,” Raynor wrote in a July 29 e-mail.
He said the plumber who did agree to look at the problem, Palmerio Plumbing, figured out a “grommet” on his grinder pump, which pulverizes sewage and pumps it uphill into the township system, had failed. It is “designed to fail under back pressure to limit damage to the pump,” Raynor said he was told by the pump’s manufacturer.
Raynor said Palmiero also told him “the builder used schedule 40 pipe and they should have used schedule 80. And, that the township believed there were backflow valves on each residence’s sewer line. He informed the township that there were no backflow valves installed.”
Backflow vales are installed to prevent sewage from the wider system, from back-flowing into home systems when there is a blockage or other type of problem.
Additionally, Raynor wrote that Paul Jardel, a water quality specialist from DEP’s southeast regional office in Norristown, visited the area July 26 and told him “without even testing that was evidence sewage seeped into the storm drain.”
If that is confirmed, it would be a violation of state and federal clean water laws.
The problems have surfaced at the same time the township is soliciting proposals to sell the sewer system, and use the money to pay off debt, make its pension shortfalls whole and perhaps use some money for construction or repair of township buildings.
The decision to look at selling the system came after the township was approached by Aqua PA and Pennsylvania American Water about the possibility.
Ever since the passage of Act 12 in 2016, private utility companies like Aqua and PA American Water have been on a buying spree.
The act changes the way the systems are valued and allows municipalities to charge much more to sell the system than they previously did. This makes overtures from private companies much more attractive because the sale prices are much higher.
The average Upper Pottsgrove sewer bill is about $860 a year, one of the highest in the area.
But the potential for the sale of Upper Pottsgrove’s system got a little more complicated earlier this month, when the Pottstown Borough Authority, which owns the sewer treatment plant used by the township’s system, insisted the system could not be sold without the authority’s agreement.