Outages cause sewage water to go into river

By Times staff | Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Three cities reported wastewater bypasses to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources after storms knocked out power in Muscatine, Buffalo and Burlington, Iowa.

The city of Muscatine bypass its sewage treatment plant Monday when an older pumping station failed. An unknown amount of untreated wastewater was released to the Mississippi River between 5:30 a.m. and noon.

The city of Buffalo in Scott County began bypassing at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning after a windstorm on Monday knocked out power to the lift station on Front Street. Between 500 and 1,000 gallons of untreated wastewater has been released into an unnamed tributary to the Mississippi River, and the bypass is still in progress and is expected to stop sometime today.

The city of Burlington had two bypasses, the first one occurring early Saturday when power failed at the main treatment plant and an estimated 600,000 gallons of untreated wastewater were released to the Mississippi River between 5:15 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. A second bypass occurred when a citywide power outage hit Burlington Monday between 6:30 a.m. and 9:50 a.m. An estimated  1 million gallons of untreated wastewater were released to the Mississippi River before the power was restored.

 “It’s important for cities and towns to plan for emergencies, including power outages,” said Chuck Corell, head of the DNR’s water quality bureau.