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Workers attempting to bypass broken St. Petersburg sewer line

 
New signs along Joe's Creek on Tuesday morning warn of contamination from a sewer leak in the area. [CHERIE DIEZ   |   Times]
New signs along Joe's Creek on Tuesday morning warn of contamination from a sewer leak in the area. [CHERIE DIEZ | Times]
Published Sept. 30, 2014

ST. PETERSBURG — As rain pelted them, workers on Monday night were digging, pouring concrete and preparing to begin a kind of bypass operation to stop thousands of gallons of sewage from gushing into Joe's Creek and, ultimately, Boca Ciega Bay.

Meanwhile, Pinellas County officials sent an armada of "vacuum trucks" that has sucked up a half-million gallons so far from the leak, which may take until Wednesday to plug.

"We've been trying to minimize the impact to Joe's Creek," said Tom Iovino, Pinellas emergency management spokesman.

Heavy rains over the weekend are believed to be the reason a 20-inch iron sewer pipe broke Saturday night.

Perhaps the first person to see the break Saturday night was Ivy Vincent, who peeked out of her house at 7780 62nd Ave. N. "I just kind of noticed, I don't want to say a geyser, but a spurting water spout out of the front yard."

She searched for a utility bill, found a phone number and called Pinellas County. She didn't know it then, but that gusher was sending as much as 250 to 500 gallons of sewage per minute into nearby Joe's Creek north of St. Petersburg, possibly extending into Boca Ciega Bay.

Iovino said the county is concerned about possible environmental effects of the sewage gushing from the broken main line and is carefully monitoring waterways. He said officials are working closely with the state Department of Environmental Protection, but he did not know if the county would have to pay fines, as sometimes happens in such cases.

For anyone close enough to smell it, the broken line is obnoxious. But county officials want to make sure no one gets sick from coming into contact with the sewage. Therefore, they are asking people "to refrain from any recreational activities that would put them in contact with the water in Joe's Creek, Cross Bayou, Long Bayou and northern Boca Ciega Bay including the Bay Pines area," according to a news release.

There was no need for nearby residents to boil their tap water, Iovino said.

County workers and contractors were working around the clock to make a temporary fix, and then a permanent one.

Why is it taking so long?

Iovino said in spite of working through the night, the repairs will take some time. The plan is to use PVC pipe to divert the sewage around the broken spot in the metal pipe.

But that's not as simple as it sounds. First, workers need to tap into the metal pipe. But doing so could break the pipe again, creating even more spillage. So on Monday, the workers were pouring concrete around the metal pipe to stabilize it, so it doesn't break apart when the workers tap into it.

Workers will cut into the metal pipe at another spot farther down, and then connect those two points with the plastic PVC pipe, bypassing the break. The PVC pipe will go beneath 62nd Avenue, so that the road can be open. After installing the temporary PVC bypass, workers will then repair the broken iron pipe.

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In the meantime, neighbors are making do with extra traffic from sewer trucks and news crews.

Northside Christian School sits across from the break. To ease traffic, school officials had preschool and elementary classes start half an hour late, said Tessa Madasz, director of advancement. The upper grades are starting at 8 a.m. as usual.

Everyone in the school and neighborhood hopes the smelly sewage will be dealt with soon, but perhaps no one more than Vincent, the woman who noticed the break Saturday night. She has relatives coming to visit next week — from Belgium.

"I'm really hoping it gets cleaned up by then," she said, "because the odor is a little bit rancid."

Contact Curtis Krueger at ckrueger@tampabay.com or (727) 892-8232. Follow @ckruegertimes.