SHARON Mayor wants downspouts pulled from sewers

The sewage plant has experienced flooding because of the situation.
SHARON, Pa. -- Mayor David O. Ryan wants city council to enact a law requiring city residents to remove their house downspout drains from the city's sanitary sewer lines.
Officials believe a large number of city homes have their downspouts drain into the sanitary sewer lines rather than into the streets and storm sewers.
That allows a lot of surface water to get into the sanitary system during rainy weather and that causes problems at the municipal sewage treatment plant, Ryan told council last week.
The plant has experienced flooding five times this year, and downspouts are believed to be major contributors to that problem.
Heavy surface water infiltration is a key reason why the city is being forced to undertake a $22.5 million expansion of the sewer plant, the mayor added.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has mandated that the plant capacity be expanded from 4.5 million gallons per day treatment capacity to 8.66 million gallons per day.
City officials have warned the expansion could cause the average $40 bimonthly sewer bill could climb to $70 or $80 to pay for the plant expansion.
Removal program
The city did operate a downspout removal program several years ago using grant funds and was able to cover about 25 percent of the 7,000 city homes at that time.
Ryan's plan would require that anyone selling a house in the city prove that their downspout drains are not connected to the sanitary lines. If they are, the seller must have them removed.
It wouldn't resolve the downspout problem immediately but most of the sanitary line connections would be eliminated over a period of 10 to 20 years, the mayor said.
Fred Hoffman, council president, said an ordinance outlining the mayor's plan will be considered at council's October meeting.