DPW Action Contains Sewage Overflow

Friday Jan 8th, 2016

Green banner with DPW logo and text "Department of Public Works Press Release"

Quick action by Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) maintenance workers diverted and contained a sewage overflow in a heavily wooded portion of Leakin Park the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 7. DPW responded to an ongoing sanitary sewer overflow (SSO), which was running into the Dead Run, a tributary of the Gwynns Falls, near the 1900 block of Eagle Drive.

A Utility Maintenance Division supervisor, Ronald McNair, directed his crew to dig a sump pit where the wastewater stream was collected. The overflow from this pit was then channeled above ground to the next downstream manhole and back into the sewer main. 

These actions resulted in the spill being limited to less than 9,000 gallons entering the Dead Run. On Friday, DPW found two line collapses and permanent repairs are scheduled for early next week.

The stream has been posted with warning signs, and the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Baltimore City Health Department have been notified.
For more information about health concerns as a result of sewer overflows please go to: http://health.baltimorecity.gov/sanitary-sewer-overflows-sso.

Citizens are encouraged to avoid contact with urban streams due to possible pollution.

Baltimore City is in the construction phase of the $1 billion Consent Decree rehabilitation of our sewer infrastructure.

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