City of Melfort advising residents to help prevent sewer blockages

Other items that were seen and can cause similar issues include paper towels, coffee grounds, hair, and flushable wipes.

“Don’t put your flushable wipes down the drain,” Homes said. “Flushable is more of a marketing term, it’s not a reality.”

While complications like these are somewhat common in commercial or industrial sites, so much so that it’s one of the budgeting items for the city every year, it’s less common and more preventable in residential areas.

Homes added the biggest problem is the fact that the blockages happen over time, which may cause people to think they’re not doing any harm because there are no immediate consequences.

He assured the community that there is harm being done and that it would be nice if it wasn’t man-made.

“It’s an operational cost for the city to have the blockages cleared and to keep the systems maintained. There are a lot of things that we can do personally, to make sure that those aren’t born by us.”

The city had to get a truck to flush out the system, which pushes out the blockages. Sometimes, there can even be issues with the sanitary sewer, which could have moved and cracked, as well, so the city has to inspect that too.

Homes said that in 2021, costs averaged about $1,000 per incident of this degree. Should the problem become more common and severe, however, costs could continue to pile up and rise.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8

by Ben Tompkins

City of Melfort advising residents to help prevent sewer blockages

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