Sewage pump station failure has crews working through the night
By Andrea Swayne
One of the city’s main pump stations that moves sewage to the treatment plant failed Sunday, keeping utilities maintenance crews busy through the night, said a department supervisor on site shortly before 6 a.m. Monday.
Utilities Maintenance Supervisor Ken Burtech said the pump station in North Beach near the train station failed completely at about 9 p.m. Sunday, necessitating the use of pumper trucks to capture as much sewage as possible to prevent it from reaching the beach and the setup of a temporary bypass pump to route sewage to the treatment plant until it can be repaired.
Crews have been filling and dumping a fleet of nine 5,000-gallon tankers throughout the night, Burtech said, however the calculations of total gallons of sewage have not yet been made.
Some spillage did occur for a period of about an hour onto the beach near the Pier, he said, but the volume of that spill has yet to be estimated as well. The beach, one half-mile to the north and to the south of the pier, will be closed to swimming and surfing for two days, officials said.
A time frame for bringing the pump station back online has also not been determined.
“We are just trying to get out of the woods with the bypass pump,” Burtech said. “Once we get that done, we can assess the damage and start making repairs to get the station back to its normal operation.”
