SUNDRE - Disposable wipes marketed as flushable might clear through a house’s plumbing.
But they can and do accumulate farther downstream, potentially causing serious problems with the municipality’s wastewater treatment facility, says Sundre's operations manager.
“They don’t biodegrade or break down,” said Jim Hall, adding he prepared a public notice urging residents to refrain from flushing wipes down the toilet.
“They’re really hard on sewage systems. If they get into the pump, it can create blockages,” Hall said.
The sewage system that feeds wastewater into the treatment lagoon does have equipment capable of breaking down material that builds up and pumps it through into the holding cells, Hall said.
However, “our grinder is broken down,” he added.
What ends up happening when material that does not break down gets flushed down the toilet is an accumulation of waste that builds up and gets hooked on the treatment facility’s intake pumps, he said.
In recent weeks, a clump of roughly 23 kilograms — or about 50 pounds — of wipes that had built up got caught up on a communication cable that hangs off of a switch in a well where the sewage comes in. From there, a pump lifts the wastewater into the lagoon's holding cells, he said.
But the communication cable that essentially tells the pump when to turn on ended up being ripped out of the system by the built up clump of wipes, he said.
The resulting emergency required immediate attention, with a town crew working alongside a local electrician who had to go into the well wearing compliance gear to rewire the communication cable that had failed in order to re-establish the connection to the pumps, he said.
Feminine hygiene products can also cause issues and should never be flushed down a toilet either, he said, advising people to toss such items, including wipes, in a wastebasket after use.
For example, plastic applicators end up contaminating the sewage lagoon’s waste with inorganic material. So long as the sludge that builds up at the bottom of a holding cell is organic, the waste can actually eventually be used as agricultural fertilizer when the ponds are cleaned out, a process that occurs roughly every 10-15 years depending on how quickly they fill up. But not if there is inorganic material that has accumulated, he said.
“The only things that should be going down are the three Ps: pee, poop and toilet paper,” he said, urging people to be cognizant of what they flush.
While waste like wipes are typically pushed through pressurized sewage mains and continue to flow, problems can and do occur at the treatment facility’s intake system, where pumps can potentially jam up, he said.
“They’re critical,” he said about the pumps, which depending on their size can cost upwards of $50,000 to replace.
“They have to run or poop doesn’t move.”
Meanwhile, the municipality’s essential services remain fully operational. Staff had for a couple of weeks already been keeping an eye on the unfolding situation with the spread of COVID-19 and had been getting prepared, he said.
“We were way ahead of it before it even became a pandemic.”
Local officials continue to receive information and follow advice and guidelines offered by provincial authorities to relay updates to the community, he said.
While the operations manager did not anticipate the declaration of a local state of emergency, as has occurred in other centres including Calgary and Banff, he said a primary focus is not only communicating with residents but also ensuring the health and safety of staff.
