Oct 30, 2009 8:49 pm US/Central
Some Oswego Residents Inundated With Sewage
OSWEGO, Ill. (CBS) ―
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Sewage backup at Oswego's Deerpath Creek subdivision has caused property damage and potential health problems for residents.
CBS
It stinks. It's unhealthy. And it's been pouring into their homes: raw sewage.
All because of a screw-up. Now, with all the rain we've been getting, some Chicago-area families are worried it will happen again.
CBS 2's Mike Parker reports on the frustrating problem.
It happened in far west suburban Oswego in a subdivision called Deerpath Creek. Friday, the agency that is supposed to take wastewater away from those homes is taking some serious heat.
The rain-gorged stream through a culvert in the subdivision has residents wondering if the system will fail again. It sure did last week.
Resident Dave Thomas says his German Shepherd Lexie noticed the problem first.
"The dog woke me up, kind of nudging me, and there was an awful odor," he said. "I thought she might have had an accident in the house."
Instead, 2 to 4 inches of raw sewage had gurgled up out of the plumbing and inundated his finished basement. Thomas shot home video of what he was facing. The stuff, he says, ruined $20,000 worth of bedding, clothing, books and athletic equipment in addition to the dry wall and an expensive marble and tile bathroom.
CBS 2 has learned that the electrical system at the nearby pumping system run by the Fox Metro Water Reclamation district burned out. Then the backup generator failed. Then the emergency alert system failed.
Finally, an employee assigned to monitor the system by computer didn't notice.
"We have to set up different procedures," chief engineer Tom Muth said. "Our equipment's being tested, we'll have to go find extraordinary sources of backup so it doesn't happen again."
"That tells me they're incompetent," says Thomas. He and the other residents hope the failsafe system doesn't fail again.
Thomas and other residents hope it doesn't happen again. They're sick of cleaning out their basements and loading their belongings into dumpsters for hauling away. And they've had it with the filth and the smell.
"It's without question that we don't want anything like that to ever happen, let alone happen again," Muth said.
Fox Metro has hired a cleanup company to help the residents get back to normal. Also, a microbiologist has been hired to make sure the cleanup is working.
But Thomas said the microbiologist refused to even take samples in his basement yesterday, saying it was "too dirty."
The expert is due to return on Saturday.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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