Worried Observers Raise Stink About Harrison Sewer System
The way city officials have dealt with Harrison’s ailing sewer system is the focus of debate in the mayor’s race. But no one is arguing that the problems aren’t serious.
In fact, said Mayor Dave Lepard, the sewage treatment plant hasn’t operated at all this year. Its three lagoons leak so badly that there’s not enough water available to run from them into the final filtering and chlorination system.
Health officials haven’t raised concerns about the situation, he said, “because we’re working toward fixing it soon.”
However, a state environmental official said Wednesday he hadn’t realized the situation was so serious. Gary Gaffney of the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality said he wasn’t surprised that the 1970s-era vinyl lagoon liners are leaking, but “I wasn’t aware there was no flow in it at all.”
Untreated water leaking from the lagoons could be contaminating the ground water and ultimately drinking wells, Gaffney said. There’s no way of knowing if that is happening without testing the flow of ground water, he said.
Fears of ground water contamination are heightened by the fact that there’s solid rock below the lagoons, said engineer Steve James. Instead of being filtered as it would be through soil or sand, water could quickly hit basalt and flow toward wells.
James, who’s designing improvements, said Harrison has an unusual system that combines a central sewer with backyard septic tanks. The tanks collect some of the solid material. The effluent then flows through small pressurized pipes to the lagoon.
At the treatment plant, water is supposed to be piped from the lagoons through a final filter. Disinfecting chlorine is added before the water is discharged into a pond that’s between the railroad tracks and State Highway 97, not far from Lake Coeur d’Alene.
City Councilwoman Annie Russell said that final pond is definitely “sludgy.” When her dog chased an animal into it, she said, “it took three scrubbings to make the dog look and smell better.”