Excessive debris jams lift station pumps in Lake Villa, leads to private system overflow

OXFORD TWP. – The bad news is some raw sewage from the privately-owned-and-operated sanitary system in the Lake Villa Manufactured Home Community flowed into Parker Lake on Friday morning after two pumps in a lift station got clogged with debris and stopped working.

The good news is the spill wasn’t nearly as large as initially estimated in a notice sent out by the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner’s (WRC) Office and the affected lake is not used for recreational purposes nor is it connected to any other bodies of water.

Glenn Belen, maintenance supervisor for Lake Villa, estimated the size of the overflow to be “maybe 500 gallons, if that,” not the “less than 50,000 gallons” that was originally mistakenly reported by the WRC Office. He noted the sewage was all in liquid form, “no solids.”

Belen also estimated the overflow happened over a period of “probably three hours” on July 5. “I would say probably (from) 9 (a.m.) to noon,” he said.

According to Joel Brown, civil engineer with the WRC Office, it appears “the (sewage) discharge is just limited to the lake itself.”

“We haven’t seen any areas where there could be further discharge downstream,” he said. “The lake appears to be isolated, almost like a retention pond, so there (aren’t) any further outlets that would possibly impact bodies of water downstream.”

Mark Hansell, special programs chief with the Oakland County Health Division’s Environmental Health Services unit, said, “If you had to discharge sewage, which we don’t want to, ever,” this was “a good place” for it to happen.

“That is a very contained lake,” he said. “There are no outlets. It’s not affecting recreational waters downstream or through a connecting creek or anything like that. It was designed to collect natural runoff anyway.”

“I don’t want to say it’s something we’re not worried about, but the scenario could have been much worse,” Hansell noted.

E. coli levels in Parker Lake

Testing of three water samples taken from Parker Lake on July 6 confirmed the presence of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria at levels that are above the standards for what is considered safe for recreational activities.

A sample taken at the discharge point – the area near the lift station where the spill entered the lake – showed there were 28,236 E. coli per 100 milliliters (mL), the highest concentration. A sample taken 100 yards to the north showed 202 E. coli per 100 mL, while one obtained 100 yards to the south showed 713 E. coli per 100 mL.

To put those numbers in perspective, based on state standards, it’s not considered safe to have total body contact with water where the E. coli count exceeds 300 per 100 mL. Swimming is an example of total body contact.

Based on state standards, it’s also not safe to have partial body contact with water where the level is above 1,000 E. coli per 100 mL. Fishing is an example of partial body contact.

But, as was mentioned earlier, Parker Lake is not used for recreational purposes.

“Nobody goes in that lake,” Belen said.

He explained that’s because the lake is “mostly muck,” home to a lot of snapping turtles and completely surrounded by wild vegetation. “There’s really no area where you can walk right up to (the water),” Belen said.

Hansell agreed and said the lake is “not an attractive” place for swimming.

“There are no public beaches (or) public access for people to enjoy that lake. It’s pretty (overgrown) . . . The chances of somebody actually swimming in that water, I think, are pretty slim,” he said.

“We don’t allow people to swim in there and if they did, they would never do it again. We have some pretty gnarly snapping turtles in (there),” Belen noted.

That being said, precautions are still being taken to prevent human contact with the contaminated water. Residents are being warned to stay away from the lake.

“I will ensure that the no swimming signs we have in place are visible and keep the public posting on the mail centers (within the park),” Belen wrote in a July 8 email to Brown.

Both Brown and Hansell said the combination of aquatic plants, microbes and sunlight should be able to break down and eliminate the contamination.

“The lake is a suitable environment for natural decomposition of the sewage,” Brown said. “We will need time, obviously, for that to take place.”

On July 8, Brown indicated the lake water will be retested in approximately five to seven days to confirm that is happening and the E. coli levels are dropping.

What caused the overflow?

According to Belen, the overflow was caused by a combination of two things.

The first was an excessive amount of debris created by people sending items into the sewer system that don’t belong there.

When the pumps were pulled out and the well was cleaned on July 5, Belen said the amount of debris removed “probably was the equivalent of three commercial-size mopheads.” There was even a child’s toy in the mix.

“We’ve obviously got some people in (the park) that are flushing stuff that they shouldn’t be flushing,” he said.

Belen said disposing of things that are “stringy or solid” is what jams up the lift station’s pumps. To him, a good rule of thumb for people to follow is, with the exception of toilet paper, “if it doesn’t go through your mouth, it shouldn’t go in the toilet.”

Examples of items that should never be flushed are cotton balls, pads and swabs; any type of wipe, even if it purports to be “flushable”; feminine hygiene products; condoms; diapers; dental floss; paper towels and tissues; hair; gum, cooking grease; cat litter; cigarette butts; and food.

“That’s a pretty good list,” Belen said.

Since there’s no way to police what goes on inside everyone’s homes, Belen said it’s important for people to govern themselves when it comes to properly disposing of waste.

“We can’t stop them from (flushing) what they (want) down the toilet,” he said. “We even pulled a couple of kids’ toys out of there.”

The other factor that contributed to the overflow, according to Belen, was the increased volume of sewage created by more people being home due to the Fourth of July holiday.

Once the first pump jammed, Belen said ordinarily, the second pump probably could have handled things, but due to the increased flow coupled with all the debris, it “just couldn’t keep up,” so it, too, jammed.

Too many zeroes

For those wondering why a July 6 notice sent out by the WRC Office estimated the volume of the overflow to be “less than 50,000 gallons” when it was actually nowhere near that amount, the answer is quite simple.

Brown said that was a “mistake” on his part.

Since he wasn’t on-site during the discharge, Brown explained he attempted to estimate the potential size of the spill by multiplying the number of manufactured home sites served by that particular lift station (which is 100 of the park’s 851 sites) by 100 gallons per day (an estimate of the normal per-home daily output), then dividing the result in half since the overflow didn’t last a full day.

Based on that formula, he said the estimate should have been 5,000 gallons or less, not 50,000.

“I was a zero off,” Brown said.