By Stephen Smoot
A malfunctioning, aging, and obsolete sewer system has posed critical health and environmental dangers for the Town of Lumberport and communities downstream on Tenmile Creek, the West Fork River, and the Monongahela.
Fortunately, state, county, and local officials teamed up to bring an immediate “band-aid,” but also a permanent solution to the infrastructure breakdown.
According to Terry Fletcher, chief communications officer for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, the agency “responded to multiple reported spills from the Town of Lumberport’s sewage treatment system and observed overflows caused by both heavy rains and snow melt and an equipment malfunction.”
”It was actually an outdated system when it was put in in 1998,” Lumberport Public Works Supervisor Bill Davisson told WBOY last week. “And the problem is that the main lines on the system are only four-inch lines. And every time you get hard torrential rains, like 10 inches of snow that we just had a couple weeks ago, so much groundwater gets into the system that the four-inch lines can’t handle everything.”
Patsy Trecost II, Harrison County Commissioner, added that of the four stations in the sewage system, the main one failed. The “band aid” solution helped to restore function temporarily until the system could be permanently improved.
The overflow into the lines forced raw sewage to be pushed from the system, where it flowed into Tenmile Creek. A delegation of residents took their concerns to the previous week’s Harrison County commission meeting. Because they described the issues during public comment, the county commission by established rule could not respond in any fashion during the meeting.
Davisson added that eight to 12-inch lines are more appropriate for the carrying capacity needs of Lumberport. Additionally, the region is experiencing a natural several years’ long cycle of short duration intense rainstorms that can overwhelm systems constructed to handle different conditions.
Last Thursday, state officials from the WVDEP came to inspect the system and analyze what happened, as well as how to rebuild the system to handle extreme conditions. Fletcher explained that they “conducted the on-site portion of a comprehensive inspection of the Town’s system. A copy of the inspection report will be publicly available once it is complete.”
Trecost praised the efforts by different officials from state and local agencies. He stated that “I can’t give enough credit to everyone for working together.”
“They took the bull by the horns,” Trecost said of Lumberport’s response to the crisis. He added that once the state got involved in this case, the path to solutions becomes easier, saying “The DEP tells you how to handle it. They’ve done a great job.”
“It’s a county issue; it’s a city issue; it’s a community issue,” Trecost said.