City public works crews are still trying to fix a blocked sewage pipe that spilled more than 60 million gallons of raw sewage into the Gwynns Falls last month.
Crews found a problem with the sewage line near Carroll Park in West Baltimore on May 22, but they weren't sure there was a blockage and spill until three days later. By Friday, workers had stopped the spill and redirected the flow with a bypass.
Unclogging the pipe, however, has proved more nettlesome and might take an additional week, officials said.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun incorrectly reported that city and state officials had said raw sewage from a spill last month in the Gwynns Falls would eventually run into the Inner Harbor. In fact, officials said the spill will affect the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River.
The Sun regrets the error.
Workers have checked nearly 300 feet of sewer line and have found another blockage near the first one, said Kurt Kocher, spokesman for the city's Department of Public Works.
State and city officials said there's no way to clean up the spill and that the sewage is likely to reach the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River and, eventually, the Inner Harbor. They blame the city's antiquated pipes, in this case dating back to 1913.
Under a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the city is spending close to $1 billion to upgrade its wastewater treatment infrastructure, which is expected to take years.
"We're doing everything we can as best as we can, but it's quite deep in the ground," Kocher said of the Gwynns Falls pipe.
The spill, one of the city's largest in recent memory, posed numerous problems. Because the sewage pipe is 37 feet underground, Kocher said, the city didn't receive calls from neighbors complaining that they smelled sewage. And, because the pipe had an overflow valve built in to carry sewage to the storm drain, crews couldn't see the spill. They learned of it only because their instruments detected a problem with the flow coming into the plant.
"We could not have been more pro-active," Kocher said. "We noticed something wrong. We searched for the problem. We got equipment there immediately. We fixed the spill. And we are going to fix the blockage."
Some environmental activists are mindful of the city's enormous undertaking to upgrade the pipes but wonder why the blockage wasn't fixed promptly.
"It's staggering. In any other river it would be considered an outrage," said Rebecca Kolberg, a community activist who lives at the mouth of the Patapsco River. "I'm tired of people viewing the Patapsco as an industrial sewer."
In Kolberg's Anne Arundel County neighborhood, children swim in the Patapsco. Along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge, residents go fishing and crabbing in the Middle Branch.
