sewage

							TCEQ calls out McAllen on sewage main break

James Osborne <mailto:josborne@themonitor.com>

July 23, 2007 - 6:14PM

McALLEN – State environmental officials criticized the city of McAllen
in a recent investigation into the city’s handling of a sewage main
break that sent 73,800 gallons of raw sewage into north McAllen streets.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is still considering what
penalty the city will be assessed, said regional director Lorinda
Gardner in Harlingen.

The sewage main, an old, pressurized metal pipe which runs north to
south just to the west of 10th Street, has ruptured repeatedly in the
last decade. The line is scheduled to be shut down once work on a new
plastic sewage main is completed, a date tentatively set as next fall.

Under Villa Norte, an upscale subdivision north of Trenton Road, the
main ruptured again May 15. City work crews, well experienced at
handling sewage spills in that neighborhood, damned up a nearby
drainage canal and started pumping the 73,800 gallons of raw sewage
from the streets to the makeshift cesspool.

According to the report issued by TCEQ July 13, the sewage   was
contained within the canal until four days later, by which   time repairs
on the main were complete. City workers told investigators   the sewage
was diluted and treated with chemicals before being pumped   back into
the city’s wastewater system.

On May 21, TCEQ investigators received a report of masses of dead fish
roughly two miles downstream from the site of the sewage spill. A Texas
Parks and Wildlife biologist attributed the death of an estimated 2,000
fish in the canal to low oxygen levels in the water, an occurrence
which can be caused by the disinfection process.

“Disinfection is not good for fish either, so when they release
whatever water they did there’s going to be low dissolved oxygen and
residual disinfectant,” Gardner said. “Also, I suspect it does take
them a while to discover these leaks and perhaps some raw sewage did
get into the canal.”

McAllen Water and Sewage General Manager Roy Rodriguez admitted some
residue of sewage and chemicals probably did remain in the canal when
the dikes were removed.

“The chances of pumping 100 percent back into the system are minimal,”
he said. “But I want to see the evidence they have on (the cause of)
the fish kill, and I want them to understand the magnitude of our
effort to correct this issue.”

TCEQ’s report catalogued a series of sewage line breaks in Villa Norte
during the last three years, the most severe in November 2004 when 4.5
million gallons of sewage had to be contained within the canal while
repairs were underway.

With population growth high in the region, many Rio Grande Valley
cities are rushing to upgrade and expand existing and often
deteriorating infrastructure. While road potholes and water outages are
move obvious consequences of the situation, sewage leaks are a serious
environmental concern, Gardner said.

“You saw what happened in New York City the other week (when a steam
line exploded killing one person and injuring others),” the regional
director said. “Aging infrastructure is a cause for concern everywhere.
We do remain concerned about it and do try to help the cities in
correcting that problem, but, of course, it costs money.”