(Milford)– Bypasses of untreated wastewater continues in all of the Iowa Great Lakes. That word from Steve Anderson, Superintendent of the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary District…
“We are currently sandbagging lift stations that are under water. That’s part of the reason why the sewer is flooded now, because we’ve got water sitting on top of manholes and lift stations all over the area. We’re working, I actually have crews working 24 hours now. We had been but we’ve got a little better rotation going now.”
Anderson continues to urge everyone to limit water usage as much as possible…
“You have to use the restrooms and you have to use the showers and that kind of stuff. Just try to limit your time in those, doing that stuff, washing dishes and that kind of stuff. Something to keep in mind is that if you’ve got water coming into your basement it could be sewer. If you wash dishes upstairs it’s just going to come up in your basement. Some of the stuff that we’re seeing actually is because the reason why people are having issues because of that is that the basements are flooded and they’re doing stuff upstairs and it’s coming into the basement downstairs.”
Anderson also says you need to stay away from active bypasses and is urging people to stay out of the lakes…
“I can’t emphasize this enough that we’re seeing people swimming at beaches and things like that. I know that some of the cities have shut down their beaches and that helps, but we’ve got wastewater in the lake and I can’t tell you if it’s safe or not and so the best situation is to just not go into the water if you can prevent it.”
As of now, officials with various drinking water providers in the area have not indicated any issues with that. Those samples are tested regularly for any signs of contaminants.
Customers of the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary District can report sewage backups by clicking here.
