OKLAHOMA CITY – The Environmental Protection Agency and the Oklahoma Water Resources Board have joined hands in a program intended to prevent municipal sewage overflows that contaminate streams, creeks, rivers and lakes.
Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grants totaling $444,800 to finance five such projects in a handful of Oklahoma communities were approved recently.
Ÿ Stonewall, a town of 520 population, is experiencing intermittent sewer backups and inflow/infiltration issues attributed to failing and collapsing sewage collection lines, officials reported.
The Pontotoc County community will receive $30,606.50 to pay for planning and design to identify corrective measures to resolve those problems, said Joe Freeman, chief of the Water Board’s Financial Assistance Division.
Ÿ Welch, a Craig County town of 560 residents, experiences wastewater bypasses during rain storms “and has significant inflow and infiltration issues,” local officials lamented.
The OWRB approved a $67,000 grant to finance a sanitary sewer evaluation survey and geotechnical investigation to locate the problem areas. The funds also will pay for engineering and design expenses to correct the issues.
Ÿ Orlando, a Logan County community of approximately 170 residents, has failing sewer lines that allow inflow and infiltration into the sanitary sewer system. The I&I overwhelms the town’s sewage treatment lagoons when it rains.
Consequently, Orlando is under orders from the state DEQ to take corrective measures.
The Water Board approved a $73,512.50 OSG grant to underwrite the design of improvements to address the I&I issues and other expenses associated with the project.
Ÿ Konawa, a town of approximately 1,300 residents in Seminole County, has I&I issues that cause the wastewater collection system to exceed its capacity and overflow.
The OWRB awarded a $76,000 OSG grant to conduct a sewer system evaluation survey and engineering to determine the best course of action to correct the problems.
Ÿ Atoka, a southeastern Oklahoma city of 3,000 population, has a wastewater collection system that has been experiencing capacity limitations, blockages, and issues with collection lines that are causing sewage overflows, officials reported.
A $197,681 OSG grant will finance a sanitary sewer evaluation survey to identify the cause of the overflow issues and develop an engineering report to correct the problem.
The EPA is providing $554,000 in Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grants to finance 80% of these projects in Oklahoma, and the Water Resources Board is contributing $110,800 to cover the other 20%, according to Tonya White, marketing and outreach manager in the OWRB’s Financial Assistance Division.
“This is a new program that was introduced in November 2021,” White said.
The Village inspects
1,700’ of line monthly
At least one city in Oklahoma takes a proactive approach to maintenance of its wastewater collection system.
In The Village, a two-square-mile community of 9,500 residents in north Oklahoma City, the city’s Public Works Department has crews who inspect sections of the sanitary sewer system every month.
Approximately four miles of sewer lines in The Village were flushed out in each of the last two years.
In a related practice, city workers routinely check 140 “troublesome” manholes throughout the community each month to detect and resolve problems before they become a crisis. Foul odors emanating from manhole covers and wastewater overflows caused by heavy rainfall are telltale signs of issues.
The late David Joslin, the town’s former sewer superintendent, said tree roots are the chief cause of sewer obstructions in The Village, but the second biggest culprit is towelettes used for cleansing (such as dirty hands and filthy kitchen countertops). “I guess it’s because the label says they’re ‘disposable’,” he said. “But they tend to cause disruptions in sewer lines.”
The Village Public Works Department has also had to clear sewer lines that were clogged with grease from a food service establishment, and a heavy concentration of grease caused an overflow in a sewer main a few years ago.
Foreign objects have been problematic, too. Line Maintenance crews in the Public Works Department once extracted an 8-foot-long land timber from a manhole, found a pillow in a sanitary sewer manhole, and pulled three junked bicycles plus some bike parts from a manhole on another occasion. A Nerf football caused a blockage in a residential sewer pipe one day.
Joslin said he and other city maintenance workers typically spent approximately four hours a day, three days a week, cleaning out sewer lines in The Village. A trailer pulled behind a city truck has a tank that holds 700 gallons of water and a compressor that produces 3,000 pounds of water pressure.
A toolbox on the trailer has various types of sprayer heads that attach to the water hose, for dislodging different kinds of obstructions in the lines. For example, one head is designed to chew up tree roots, while another bores and blasts through accumulated mud.
“When we get a call of a sewer stoppage, we typically ‘hydro jet’ the line, whether there is an actual stoppage or not,” City Manager Bruce Stone told Southwest Ledger.
“Not only does this help prevent future problems, which is our main goal, but it protects the city if there is a subsequent backup that causes damage, because the city cannot be held to account for damages due to negligence.”