Sewage discharged into Yamhill River
Approximately 50,000 gallons of partially treated sewage was discharged into the South Yamhill River Monday due to a control system failure at the McMinnville Water Reclamation Facility.
At approximately 7 a.m. influent gates for the facility lost signal from the main controller, allowing flow to bypass the secondary treatment process and “go straight to UV disinfection before discharging to the South Yamhill River,” according to a release from city Public Works.
The gates were manually opened at 7:40 a.m., stopping the flow.
“This resulted in approximately 50,000 gallons of partially treated sewage discharging to the South Yamhill River at river mile 0.3,” the release states.
Warning signs about the release were posted at area parks, according to city staff.
For more information regarding the city’s sewer system or the discharge, contact Wastewater Services at (503) 434-7313.
Comments
NJINILNCCAOR
So much for my idea of getting a kayak to explore.
B
UH, so what happened between 7:00 and 7:40 AM?
ALLCAPS
WHO IF ANYONE WILL HAVE TO ANSWER FOR THIS INCIDENT.I WILL ANSWER MY OWN QUESTION. NO ONE.
Bigfootlives
Just a reminder that $4.5 million of the Water Department reserve funds are currently sitting tied up in the city of McMinnville’s RBRubber scam interdepartmental loan. A loan applied for and approved by the same people. Complete financial responsibility by the city taxpayers.
City is broke again this year, while they high five the sweet heart deal, remember that a $4.5 million dollar balloon payment is in the calendar, city hall has been nice enough to secure an interest only loan.
sbagwell
ALLCAPS: As the story clearly indicates, it was a "a control system failure." I guess the control system will have to answer for this incident. I hope the control system will learn its lesson and never try something like this again. In the meantime, so much for your thirst for vengeance.
Steve
B
bagwell - So it's the system's fault. That answers all the questions.
sbagwell
If you have a magic way to keep a highly complex computerized system from failing periodically at inopportune times, please share it with us. No matter how fail-safe we try to make such a system, it will let us down at some point.
Accidents will happen, no matter how many precautions are taken. Why the rush to find fault and assign blame? Sounds more punitive than productive to me.
Steve