{"id":1319702,"date":"2020-04-29T18:34:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T00:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=995805"},"modified":"2020-04-29T18:34:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T00:34:18","slug":"before-you-flush-glenwood-sewers-take-on-influx-of-non-flushable-items-during-covid-19-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/before-you-flush-glenwood-sewers-take-on-influx-of-non-flushable-items-during-covid-19-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Before you flush: Glenwood sewers take on influx of non-flushable items during COVID-19 crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"508\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/IMG_1829-1024x508.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/IMG_1829-1024x508.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/IMG_1829-300x149.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/IMG_1829-768x381.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/IMG_1829-1536x762.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/IMG_1829-2048x1016.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Since Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 stay-at-home order in March, the Glenwood Springs Water and Wastewater Department has found itself skimming out more debris than usual from the city\u2019s sewer system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the amount of disinfecting that had picked up, we were noticing a lot more debris at our wet wells,\u201d said Mike Hoffman, Water and Wastewater Department field operations superintendent. \u201cThe wet wells are where the sewer pump stations are at and we have nine of those throughout the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Hoffman, pre-pandemic, city employees generally skimmed wet wells on a monthly or as-needed basis. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, however, workers must perform the task weekly and sometimes more.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, all of the debris removed from the wet wells gets transported and discarded at the South Canyon Landfill.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe were starting to experience more backups either in residential units or on our mainlines themselves,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cThese wipes and non-flushable (items), what they do is they\u2019ll gather\u2026and ultimately block the pipe fully or partially.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Hoffman, crews were routinely removing non-flushable items like disinfectant wipes, cotton balls, floss, feminine hygiene products, Q-tips, paper towels, tissues and other items.<\/p>\n<p>Hoffman said the city\u2019s pipes were also taking on an influx of household grease and asked residents to please be mindful of what they put down their drains too.<\/p>\n<p>In Carbondale, Public Works Director Kevin Schorzman said he was very concerned about pipe backups during the early days of the crisis but, so far, had been pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not heard from our wastewater treatment plant that we\u2019ve been pulling any more than normal out of our bar screen,\u201d Schorzman said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Schorzman, the town\u2019s Public Works Department had issued a few reminders to residents about what not to flush or put down the drain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if those wipes say flushable on them, they\u2019re not flushable,\u201d Schorzman said. \u201cThe message we put out there was \u2018Think about your neighbors.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silt Public Works Director Trey Fonner also said, like Carbondale, the town had not had any issues with backups so far.<\/p>\n<p>According to Fonner the town was actively reminding residents on its website and social media channels to be mindful of what they were discarding.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"mailto:mabennett@postindependent.com\">mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/before-you-flush-glenwood-sewers-take-on-influx-of-non-flushable-items-during-covid-19-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 stay-at-home order in March, the Glenwood Springs Water and Wastewater Department has found itself skimming out more debris than usual from the city\u2019s sewer system. \u201cWith the amount of disinfecting that had picked up, we were noticing a lot more debris at our wet wells,\u201d said Mike Hoffman, Water and Wastewater [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-04 00:24:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}