(Milford)– Officials with the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary District and other agencies say they’ve been getting calls from residents saying they have sewage in their yards, when, in fact, it’s stagnant water.
Steve Anderson, Superintendent of the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary District, tells KUOO news that stagnant water usually has other things in it, including grass and other plants that have died due to a lack of oxygen. He says it also usually contains earth worms and night crawlers along with other insects. Those materials give off an odor similar to sewer when the decay and die off. It also produces a brown color in the water along with brown colored scum or biofilm. Anderson says wastewater or raw sewage from the sewer system is gray or white in color, not brown.
He adds raw wastewater coming into the treatment facility is generally 95 percent or more water with very little solid materials in it.
