Sewage systems overwhelmed, causes backups
Sewage systems in Charlottetown and Cornwall have backed up due to excess water from the rain and melting snow.
For the past few days, Sherry Dawson and her daughter have been shovelling sewage water in their basement toward the sump pump.
“This is feces, this is actually sewage coming up. And as you can smell, it's not very nice,” said Dawson.
Crews from the Town of Cornwall were trying to fix the problem Wednesday.
Matt Duffy the Utility and Public Works manager of Cornwall said they have been drawing water out of the manhole just to relieve some of the pressure.
“Other than that we have no blockages or anything, the water's going through as fast as it can,” he said. “It's just, we've never seen run off like this in a long time.”
William Doyle lives in Charlottetown and has resorted to using a Shop Vac to suck up water from the sewage system.
“Well it was two days last week we couldn't use our washrooms, and it's two days this week that we can't use our washrooms.”
The City of Charlottetown says there are a couple of areas where melting snow and rain have infiltrated the sewage system.
They continue to work with crews on the problem.
