Starting late Wednesday or early Thursday, the City of Middletown will begin smoke tests of the sanitary sewer system in and around campus.
The tests are part of an ongoing project to reduce excess water entering Middletown’s Waste Water Treatment Facility. Large amounts of clean rainwater and groundwater have infiltrated the sanitary sewer system, making it difficult to treat the water adequately.
“It’s completely clean water that isn’t sewage, and it’s being treated at the [sewage treatment] facility,” said George Pendleton, project manager for the Maguire Group, the firm conducting the tests. “It’s water that isn’t supposed to be there. Treating it wastes money and puts a strain on the facility.”
Smoke tests will help determine where and how the rain and groundwater are entering the system. Workers will remove manhole covers from streets and fit five-horsepower gas motors fan in their place.
“We place a smoke candle in, it looks like a firework or a half stick of dynamite, and it gives off a nontoxic smoke,” Pendleton said.
The fans will blow the smoke downward and through the system. If the system is working correctly, the smoke will only come out of the sanitary vents on a building’s rooftop.
“If not, [the smoke] will come out of a catch basin, yard drain, or even house gutters if they are connected to the sanitary sewer,” he said.
It is possible that the smoke could enter buildings without adequate plumbing traps or through infrequently used sinks and showers.
According to both Pendleton and a campus-wide e-mail, students should not be alarmed if the smoke enters a building.
“DO NOT BECOME ALARMED!” the e-mail read. “The smoke is relatively harmless and minimal in amount. Any nasal irritation that may occur will be temporary and will quickly disappear after the small amount of smoke clears.”
If smoke enters a building, the smoke may activate fire alarms. Testing personnel will know the difference between smoke related to the test and unrelated smoke, according to the e-mail.
Workers will spread out about 500 feet from the testing site and document any places that are incorrectly emitting smoke. The report will be submitted to the city and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Pendleton said faulty public infrastructure, such as catch basins, will be fixed by the city. Homeowners with property incorrectly tied to the sewers will be contacted to remedy it.
The smoke tests are only the latest step in the initiative.
“In spring 2004, we placed flow meters at 28 individual areas around the city to measure water flow,” Pendleton said. “We measured on both dry days and wet days, the days that it rained.”
The areas with the most excess flow were targeted for further study.
“Earlier this year we did building inspections,” he said. “We went door to door and inspected basements looking for sump pumps and other [equipment] that might be connected to the sanitary sewer system.”
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