City: Plug floor drains

The city of Jamestown is advising residents in the west-central area of the city to continue to plug all basement floor drains and basement fixtures, and to now begin using extreme diligence in monitoring for possible sanitary sewer backups.

The affected area is from 11th Avenue Northwest/Southwest to First Avenue, and from Ninth Street Northwest to 10th Street Southwest, according to a press release from the city engineer’s office.

With the increased river flows, the infiltration of groundwater into the sanitary sewer system is producing flows that are more than half of the system capacity in the affected area, and may approach critical levels in the next week or less. City Public Works staff will be monitoring these conditions and will do whatever they can to prevent sewer back-up into homes and businesses. However, we cannot guarantee that sewer back-ups can be prevented given the high flow rates.

As a further reminder, the rest of the sanitary sewer system is still under high stress from numerous sources, and the city encourages the continued use of the “odd/even” program and the continued plugging of basement floor drains in all areas of the city.

Flow rates for the entire system have recently been well above 7.5 million gallons per day and continue to fluctuate about 8 million gallons per day.

The city also reminded the public it is illegal to pump groundwater from sump pumps into the City sanitary sewer system. If necessary, the city may have no choice but to begin strict enforcement of this ordinance with door-to-door inspections to insure City Code compliance.

In a separate press release, the city said the current discharges remain at 1,400 cubic feet per second from the Jamestown Dam and 1,000 cfs from the Pipestem Dam, for a combined release of 2,400 cfs.

The city is continuing to evaluate its ability to handle higher discharges from the dams to offer more flexibility to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as they work to evacuate the flood storage pools.

However, while some dike capacity remains to possibly handle an additional 100 to 200 cfs, the corps recently informed the city that its’ current authority allows for no more than the current 2400 cfs discharge.

Regardless, the release said, due to the high impacts being realized by the city sanitary sewer system, it may be impossible for the city and the corps to use the remaining dike capacity to its full capacity.

In the event that weather or sanitary sewer issues require a modification to the current releases, the city and/or the corps will release additional announcements.

Tags: local news, news, sewer, flood