Cleaning the storm sewers one drain at a time

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A look inside the storm drains of Waterford Road, the dark mass on the bottom is dirt, concrete and what ever else has been building up in the drains for many years, the high pressure hose is breaking up the mass and the large metal vacuum tube is removing the mess.
A look inside the storm drains of Waterford Road, the dark mass on the bottom is dirt, concrete and what ever else has been building up in the drains for many years, the high pressure hose is breaking up the mass and the large metal vacuum tube is removing the mess.
Barbra Rubin-Perry/Herald

The Island Park sewer crew was making their way up Waterford Road on June 21, cleaning out storm drains and catch basins.

That morning Juan and James from Park Line Maintenance, the company doing the clean out, were jack hammering a dirty mass of trash and garbage, concrete and what ever else has flowed into the village sewers over many years, with help from Bill Boyce from the Village Department of Pubic Works [DPW]. It was hot and it was hard work. The mass in the sewer had hardened, so it took a round robin of jackhammer, power water wash and vacuuming over and over to get the accumulated mass out. That was just to clean the drain’s catch basin. Then the cleaning crew fed closed circuit cameras down the pipes to see how packed they were, followed by a thorough cleaning and mapping of the pipes.

Village Mayor Michael McGinty has been explaining the cleaning process to village residents. The mess vacuumed up from the drain is transferred to the dewatering containment area at the Village DPW where the water drains off for further treatment and the solids were allowed to dry. McGinty explained that the mass weighed too much for transportation when wet, so it had to be drained of water and then carted away to an appropriate landfill.

The containment area is under the direct supervision of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation [DEC]. “They (the DEC) come out every two weeks, at the invitation of the village. They liked what they saw so much that they are using as a model for other projects,” McGinty said.

McGinty explained the water goes through two big filtering trucks also located at the DPW, more solids and chemicals are filtered out. At the same time turgidity tests are conducted to make sure the water is clear. After the water is treated then pumped into a catch basin to eventually end up in the bay.

The mayor is pursuing the budgetary fiscal concerns to make sure the drains are cleaned every two years as the program goes forward.

The Village has instituted a strict no dumping concrete policy. McGinty said “We won’t let (anyone) use our drains that way anymore. We have established a dumping area for concrete at the north end of the village, again with DEC approval.”