Now I'm getting concerned. There have been sewage treatment plant spills in Johnson County, Indiana; Texas; Washington state and Massachusetts.

So far, only Massachusetts' spill has been attributed to Y2k.

Here's another sewage plant failure in Madison County, Indiana, the third incident there since December '99....

How to categorize this article? You tell me. Does this sound like one of the estimated 50,000 non-compliant sewage treatment plants that our government warned us about last December?:

Feb 10, 2000

The Anderson Herald Bulletin Online, Madison County, Indiana

BY KEN de la BASTIDE, Staff Reporter

An electrical malfunction at a lift station near the Anderson wastewater treatment plant last week resulted in more than 130,000 gallons of untreated sewage flowing into the White River.

State officials are reviewing the sewage discharge of Feb. 3 to determine if enforcement action will be taken against the Anderson plant.

IDEM spokesman Russ Grunden said the spill was reported and that it is being reviewed by state officials.

He said the official report was that a pump motor failed, which damaged the electronics of the lift station. Grunden said Anderson officials reported the backup pumps were activated and repairs were completed.

"Since it is a dry weather overflow it will be reviewed for possible enforcement action," said Grunden. "That is standard procedure. An overflow in dry weather conditions is not permitted."

Tom Bennington, supervisor for the Anderson Water Pollution Control Department, said a lift station failed Feb. 3 about 1 p.m. and repairs were completed at 2:30 p.m.

He said the electronics failed at the lift station near Moss Island Road and adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant.

"It is a combined sanitary and sewer overflow," said Bennington. "There was a discharge of about 131,000 gallons."

Bennington said the Anderson wastewater plant is rated to treat 21.25 million gallons of water per day.

The Anderson plant has been under state scrutiny since two incidents at the plant that resulted in the killing of more than 85 tons of fish between Dec. 18 and the end of January.

The first incident reported by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management is alleged to have been caused when a chemical known as DMDK was released Dec. 11 by the Guide Corp. Guide officials have denied responsibility for the fish kill.

On Jan. 6 the wastewater treatment plant began discharging a high volume of ammonia into the river. Anderson officials believe the high ammonia levels were a residual effect from the DMDK entering the plant.

Source: The Herald Bulletin; Anderson, Indiana; Reporter Ken de la Bastide can be reached at kend@indol.com

http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/htmlout/anshl4.html

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000

Answers

Lee, Do you have a link for the Massachusetts spill? thanks.

-- anon (anon@anon.com), February 11, 2000.

Anon -

In "Sewer and Water" category at the bottom of the main board, see "Massachusetts - Wastewater Treatment Plant struck by Y2k bug"

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl? msg_id=002ORK

My error. There was NO reported sewage spill in Massachusetts.

"...Pipczynski said there was no danger of uncontrolled sewage discharge. ... the TREDAT software system, which is used to process all sewer data, and creates reports to send to the state each month, was not Y2K prepared. ... Among other functions, the system calculates lab tests, inches of rainfall and the pH and other conditions of sewer plant water."

Thanks for bringing this up.

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 11, 2000.

Thanks Lee. Do anyone know what caused the massive water outage a week or two ago (water shutoff for 500,000 people, 3+ days) in Puerto Rico & whether or not it was Y2K-related?

-- anon (anon@anon.com), February 11, 2000.

Doh! Make that "Does anyone know..."

-- anon (anon@anon.com), February 11, 2000.