Information Item:
Sewer Pipe Under Repair
Staff Resource: Doug Bean, 704-391-5070 - dbean@ci.charlotte.nc.us
A sewer pipe crossing Little Sugar Creek continues being repaired today after it was damaged by a fallen tree last week.
Utilities crews stopped spillage from the pipe late yesterday by temporarily re-routing wastewater flow around the damaged pipe. Crews continue working on the permanent repair today. It's estimated that roughly 621,000 gallons of wastewater leaked from the damaged pipe into the creek during the past week or so.
The problem was initially reported on August 1. Utilities' crews looked for the problem several times; but, it wasn't found and determined to be a sewer line problem until yesterday.
While most sewer pipes are underground, the damaged 12-inch sewer pipe is an aerial (or exposed) creek crossing that was not immediately visible to responding crews. The pipe is located across Little Sugar Creek near the 8300 block of Riverbirch Drive, at the rear of an apartment complex.
State and local water quality officials with the Mecklenburg Land Use and Environmental Services Agency (LUESA) were notified of the incident yesterday. No fish kills or other visible environmental impacts have been reported. LUESA is conducting water quality tests downstream of the spill site and will continue monitoring water quality.
Utilities will continue looking into this situation to improve future response times. This utility successfully collects, treats and recycles more than 80 million gallons of our community's wastewater each day and Utilities' mission is to prevent and mitigate spills like this.
