What a mess!

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Call it a different kind of dirty politics.
Torresdale-area community groups, the Philadelphia Water Department, a local university and two City Council members are all sticking their noses into some messy neighborhood business with millions of dollars and public health at stake.
The water department wants to bury a multimillion-gallon storage tank on a local tract of Fairmount Park to manage sewage overflow in the Poquessing Interceptor, a pipe that runs along its namesake creek and takes wastewater from much of the Northeast and four suburban communities.
The raw sewage is supposed to make its way to the Northeast Water Pollution Control Plant in Port Richmond. But during heavy rains, untold volumes of contaminated water spill from a manhole behind Holy Family University’s Northeast campus into the Poquessing Creek.
The state’s Department of Environmental Protection has documented the problem and is overseeing its management by local officials under the requirements of the Clean Streams Law. DEP calls the issue a "hydraulic overload on the system," spokesman Dennis Harney said.
The tank is the centerpiece of the water department’s proposed solution. It would hold 3.75 million gallons and cost $24 million. The estimated completion date is December 2011.
The facility would be comparable to one proposed for Manayunk, where a similar overflow problem exists.
But neighbors in Torresdale don’t want it. So Councilman Brian O’Neill and Councilwoman Joan Krajewski are trying to pass a law to ban such facilities near any residential properties, including college dormitories.
A Council committee was expected to consider the bill yesterday. Tonight (June 7) a water department official is scheduled to present to the public for the first time the agency’s proposed remedy to the wastewater problem during a meeting of the Friends of Poquessing Watershed.
Tonight’s meeting is planned for 7:30 p.m. at Community College of Philadelphia, 12901 Townsend Road.
Neighbors, including members of the East Torresdale Civic Association, have been waiting for more details since last September, when they first got wind of the storage tank proposal. They opposed it almost immediately.
Some argued that a public park is no place for a sewage tank, considering the possible destruction of woods, negative impact on property values and foul odors.
Others suggested that the city cut off flow from suburban locales before forcing its own taxpayers to live with a facility that they don’t want.
The department has chosen a wooded area along a walking path between Hegerman Street and Stevenson Lane for the tank.
Lew M. Halas, president of the East Torresdale Civic Association, was one of about eight area residents to testify last month at a Council hearing on O’Neill’s and Krajewski’s bill. In addition, opponents of the tank have collected about 400 signatures on a petition circulated in the affected communities.
"The main reason (for ETCA opposition) is there’s probably going to be some odor and stuff like that," Halas said.
"I can’t fathom that the water department would consider putting it that close to homes," O’Neill agreed.
Others are taking more of a wait-and-see approach.
"We’re still waiting for input as far as the pros and cons," John Jaszczak, Holy Family’s vice president of finance, said. "The tank is one proposed solution. There are other proposed solutions in terms of the sewer system as I understand it."
"We don’t know enough about it to make a decision," said Donna Remick, president of the Friends of Poquessing Watershed. "There’s obviously a major problem there from what I’m hearing from everybody."
City Water Commissioner Bernard Brunwasser was expected to testify to Council this week. The department released an advance copy of his planned testimony.
Technically, both Bucks County and Philadelphia can be linked to the overflow problem. While the Poquessing Interceptor serves much of the Far Northeast, it also carries suburban sewage into the city.
According to water department figures, the municipalities of Bensalem, Lower Southampton and Lower Moreland delivered 4 billion gallons of wastewater to the city for treatment, about 11 million gallons per day, in fiscal year 2006. The city received about $3.4 million for providing those services.
The volume was about the same in 2005.
Some neighbors testified at the May Council hearing that the water department should reduce its service to the suburbs if the systems can’t handle the volume.
"There were comments put into testimony that if it’s Bucks County’s sewage, then why are we paying for (the tank)?" Halas said.
In a printed reply to inquiries by the Northeast Times, the water department said that the suburban service agreements — which have existed for more than 50 years — benefit the city and its taxpayers financially and by helping to protect the Delaware River drinking water supply from upstream pollution. The department is neither required, nor prohibited by state regulations to provide those services.
Meanwhile, the department links the Poquessing overflow problem to the general issue of storm-related flooding throughout the region.
"During heavy rain events, the flow in any sewer can exceed its capacity," Brunwasser, the water commissioner, said in his Council testimony.
When that occurs, sewage can stop flowing in the main. In some areas of the city, water back-flows through plumbing fixtures inside homes and other buildings. In other spots, manhole covers become paths of least resistance.
"If enough pressure builds up in a sewer, raw sewage can actually pop a manhole cover," Brunwasser said.
However, sewers in the Far Northeast and Bucks County are designed to prevent sewage overflow. Sewage is carried in a separate pipe from storm water so that, even if the storm pipes overflow, the sewage flow should remain consistent.
But on the Poquessing Interceptor, that’s apparently not the case.
Brunwasser described ways that storm water can end up in the wrong pipe. Groundwater can seep into the sewage pipe through cracks and leaks. Meanwhile, storm water can flow into the sewer pipe through improper connections.
For many years, the water department has encountered so-called cross connections in certain areas of the city. That’s when a contractor hooks up a building’s sewage pipe to the storm water main and the storm water pipe to the sewage main. Some homes have foundation drains and sump pumps feeding into the sewer main.
O’Neill thinks that the water department should fix those problems before investing in an unwanted sewage storage facility. In other instances, the department has used dyes and other equipment to track flow.
"They should have the technology and ability to get that information and fix it," the councilman said.
He also believes that the department should take a closer look at pumping overflow sewage from the residential area to a more remote site.
The water department, in a statement to the Times, claimed it has looked at other options, but all are less practical than the tank plan or would "involve extensive construction, which would be too costly and disruptive to the community." ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com