The rain over the weekend and on Monday resulted in a lot of calls from Carroll homeowners to the city offices with reports of water in their basements. Director of Public Works, Randy Krauel said crews were busy checking the storm sewer systems yesterday and didn’t find any blockages, just that the system was full of water.
He said they did have waste water infiltration inflow into the sanitary sewer system that resulted in a pump failure at the treatment plant early yesterday (Monday) morning. That issue was resolved shortly after it occurred, but Krauel said the water levels were so high the wet well rose five feet in the time it took to make that repair.
As of last night, the rising water tables had not done any damage at the plant. Krauel said at the time of their last report, about a week ago, the city was supplying approximately 1.1 million gallons per day of water but treating over 2 million gallons a day, which demonstrates the high level of residual groundwater already present. Since the rains have slowed, Krauel said the inflow should start to taper off sometime this morning but it will take time for the water levels to recede completely.
Krauel added this is an unusual situation for the waste water treatment plant team to deal with. Normally, this time of year precipitation is in the form of snow, and Krauel added if that had been the case this last weekend, they would be addressing issues with snow removal, not waste water.
