Main lift station overflow, raw sewer geyser, reenergizes sewer-septic debate

Photo by KELLY FARRELL, Staff

Scrubbing away the sewage, workers plan to be on San Marco Road, Marco Island, throughout the afternoon cleaning up after a failed pump near a lift station led to an 18,000-gallon explosion of raw sewage Friday morning. Bill and Sheila McManus of 929 San Marco Road say the geyser of sewage in their front yard this morning topped off weeks of inconvenience from the loud and unsightly pump station. Kelly Farrell/ Staff

Photo by KELLY FARRELL, Staff

Lonnie Gibson, a member of Southern Sanitation's waste and environmental crew, vacuums sewage from in front of a home on San Marco Road into a pump truck Friday morning. Southern Sanitation was contracted by the city to assist in cleaning up thousands of gallons of raw sewage. Kelly Farrell/ Staff

Photo by KELLY FARRELL

081217ME-SEWER3 Public Works crew quickly gets a pump truck on the site of the new main central sewer lift station at the corner of San Marco Road and Heathwood Drive when a flood of reuse water sprung from the lift station pipes Tuesday morning following a test of the electric switches and valves. Kelly Farrell/ Staff

MARCO ISLAND — Recent sewer system failures have several Islanders reengaged in the sewer versus septic debate. Marco Island work crews spent about seven hours Friday cleaning up following a geyser of raw sewage which erupted from a pump near a wastewater lift station on San Marco Road. An overflow from the main lift station on San Marco Road and Heathwood Drive Tuesday had officials and residents on edge of a repeat occurrence just days after 18,000 gallons of raw sewage soaked the area with a dirty mess Friday morning.

Resident Bill McMullan said he saw about a three-foot rush of water coming out of the new main lift station as drove on San Marco Road Tuesday morning, bringing back recent memories of the geyser which erupted leaving a toilet paper and human waste mess just days before.

“That’s why I came here to make sure,” said the city’s Project Manager Tim Pinter as he rushed to the site.

Tuesday’s leak was of treated reuse water coming from the new 20-inch pipe leading to the new main lift station.

Pinter said the rush of water was somewhat of a surprise as the city crew was testing the new station’s electric switches but must have also opened a valve leading to the rush of reclaimed water.

A pump truck quickly cleaned up the water and crews worked to discover the cause and exact location of the leak following their test of the new station.

While Friday’s eruption was vacuumed and limed to disinfect, cleaning the waterway near the raw spill remained up to nature’s tidal flush.

“I woke up and saw sewage blowing in the air about 10 to 12 feet high. The front lawn was two feet deep in sewage and toilet paper was hanging off his car,” said Bill McManus of San Marco Road as he pointed to his neighbor’s house.

The pump, which was installed temporarily while upgrading an older lift station, broke down before 6 a.m. Friday morning, said city Public Information Coordinator Lisa Douglass.

The work was not part of the city’s central sewer project but rather a necessary rehabilitation of a lift station and the temporary pump’s flange failed during the upgrade project, she said.

The city had the pump fully operational, flange repaired and about 10,000 gallons of the sewage cleaned up by 9 a.m., Friday.

The effects on the water, which cannot be vacuumed like the road and lawns, are still being gauged. So far, it seems the damage is minimal to none due to the tidal exchange, Douglass said Tuesday.

The water was tested for bacteria and pathogens, city environmental specialist Nancy Richie said.

Douglass said she was not aware of the results Tuesday and Richie was not immediately available to provide an update on water testing in the area.

Douglass said 8,000 gallons of sewage went into the waterway.

“Will there be long-term effects? No. Short term effects? Likely,” Douglass said Friday.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection concluded that further investigation into the incident was not necessary and water samples would not be taken, reported Eli Fleishauer, DEP’s director of public information for the southern division.

“The work the city was doing was to prevent this from happening ... It was a single equipment failure ... It’s not as bad as having (waste) slowly leaching out of a septic tank every day for years,” Fleishauer said.

He added that the slow, steady leaching allows bacteria and waste organisms to build a resistance to the saline environment.

Fleishauer said that most likely the organisms from Friday’s spill did not live long due to the shock of the salt water canal.

“I doubt anyone will contract cholera from this spill, however I submit that it is impossible to totally clean up 12,000 gallons of raw sewage on the swales in the area and to disinfect them to the point where one can have absolute assurance that none will be carried into homes or that a child playing in the grass will not become ill,” said former resident Ed Foster.

Foster said he believed the city should have been more open and honest Friday about the possible threats of the spill. He recommended the city initiate the “code red” resident alert system to notify residents of potential risks of swimming, fishing or other possible threats due to the spill and wrote to City Council hoping they would adopt a policy to require this in future incidents.

McMullan said he is hoping a federal bill called the “Sewage Overflow Right to Know Act,” which will require municipalities to inform residents when sewage is leaked, will pass.

Tuesday’s spill poses no threat because the water had already been treated, Miller said.

High levels of pathogens and bacteria from Friday’s spill have not been reported by the city.

Richie said the tides were among the factors on Marco’s side.

She said it was low tide around 6 a.m. Friday and higher tide in the late morning, limiting the amount of sewage that likely made it to the nearby canal.

E. coli, a bacteria that causes serious food poisoning in humans, would likely be found in samples, but rain, high tidal activity with the new moon and the larger size of the Landmark Waterway may have limited the possibility of high levels of the bacteria and negative effects such as a fish kill, Richie added.

Landmark Waterway, the canal along San Marco Road that was filled with thousands of gallons of sewage Friday, is about 16 feet deep and as wide as 800 feet near where the sewage spill occurred, estimated Gretchen Baldus, who collects data on the city’s geographical systems.

The spillage occurred on San Marco Road near Copperfield Court in front of homes on the canal. The average island canal is 100 feet wide and Richie said the spill likely had relatively mild negative effects because the waterway is relatively large.

City officials say drinking water was not affected.

The “explosion of water” occurred for at least an hour before it was turned off, say residents of San Marco Road about the sewage spill.

Bill and Sheila McManus say the neighborhood has been upset about the lift station for several weeks.

It’s very noisy, they said.

Douglass said the city was about two weeks over their estimate of how long it would take public works to complete the lift station upgrade.

The couple’s estimate was more like four weeks overdue, pointing out that the upgrade was to take three weeks, but turned into seven weeks and running.

The couple, part-time Maine residents, said the “explosion of sewage” wouldn’t prevent them from returning to the island.