MERIDIAN — Waste water treatment plant managers urge people to stop flushing diaper wipes, paper towels, and so called flushable wipes. Those items they say are easily caught on any protrusion and can cause costly clogs.
- Clogs are called fatbergs.
- Fatbergs can shut down riser pumps that keep the flow moving in waste water plants.
- Outside of paper, the most common items found in filter screens are money, diamond rings and matchbox cars.
(verbatim of story that aired is below)
The next time you consider flushing a handi wipe, don’t. I’m senior reporter Roland Beres. Why it could cost you and the community a lot.
The meridian waste water treatment plant handles 10 million gallons of sewage every day, so even a short shutdown would be disastrous.
“If we shut down 30 minutes we would be discharging untreated sewage into surface waters and backing up sewage into the community and endangering public health.” said Travis Kissire, deputy director of utillty operations city of meridian
And Kissere says this is one of the biggest threats to the system. Disposable wipes. Even if they say flushable, plumbers say don’t believe it.
Still producing these wipes and people think they’re flushable and they’re not.” said plumber Jaret Pennington from Magic Plumbing.
Three huge filters constantly remove large items from the water and wipes and paper towels are at the top of the list.
And that’s not all.
“What’s the craziest thing caught in here? We see a lot of money we see a lot of rings. Diamond rings.” sad Kissere.
And if you think flushing bad stuff is out of sight out of mind… plumbers say most clogs happen before the end of the driveway.
“And that can be costly? Very costly.” said Pennington.
