Water officials beg residents: Don’t flush disposable wipes
Disinfecting and disposable wipes have been flying off the shelves since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, first began. Now plumbers and city wastewater officials are bracing for impact.
City wastewater officials in Eureka and Arcata said they’ve noticed an uptick in people flushing disposable wipes down the drain, causing clogs in people’s sewer laterals, which connect the pipes in a house to the sewer main, and at least one local wastewater treatment facility.
Arcata’s Environmental Services Director Mark Andre said people flushing disposable wipes down the drain is always an issue for the city, and “talking to crews this week, it’s becoming more of a problem than usual.”
“Some of our sewer lift stations are getting bogged down with these things,” Andre said. “It appears people are buying more right now, understandably, but they’re not flushable even when the boxes say they are.”
Toilet paper practically melts when it mixes with the water in the sewer, but disposable wipes are strong and fibrous and don’t break down, he said.
“It’s almost like flushing a Tshirt down the toilet,” Andre said.
Last year, 30% of the city’s sewage overflows were caused by people flushing disposable wipes, sanitary wipes and disinfecting wipes down the drain, he said. That can causes sewage backups that flow onto the streets and sometimes into the creeks or Humboldt Bay, causing costly environmental issues, too, he said.
“It’s not like a brand new issue,” Andre said. “It’s just more pronounced now because of the fact that people are using more disinfectant wipes and disposable wipes. That’s fine. We recommend they do that. Just put it in trash bin.”
The situation isn’t as bad in Eureka. Public Works Director Brian Gerving said there’s been a slight uptick in problems associated with flushing disposable wipes down the drain, but it hasn’t really impacted the wastewater treatment facility.
“So far, (the) majority of the problems have been in customer’s (sewer laterals),” Gerving said. “It’s not causing problems in the sewer main just yet.”
Sewer laterals connect the plumbing in a building to the sewer main that transports waste to the wastewater treatment facility. Local plumbers said disposable wipes clogging the drains is a common problem, but they haven’t seen a large increase in those types of calls.
Billy and Sophia Clark, owners of BC Drain Care, said business dropped off a bit when the shelter in place order was first announced, but things have begun
picking up again the past few days.
“We really expected to see an upswing in sewage blockages because of all the sanitary wipes and toilet paper people were buying,” Billy Clark said. “But I haven’t. I think we’ve basically just seen the normal level of sewage blockages.”
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue, Clark said, because sometimes it just takes things a while to build up.
“I’m expecting an uptick in about a week,” he said.
The Clarks have had to make some adjustments to their business because they don’t want to catch the coronavirus either. Sophia stays home and fields calls instead of going out in the field with Billy to work and asks people if anyone in the household is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms before accepting a job.
Billy Clark said he’s always sanitizing everything because he works with sewage regularly but has begun taking extra precautionary measures.
“Now, I just don’t get out of the van without a mask and wear gloves all day,” he said.