Crews repair a sewer problem created by flood

A problem buried deep in the woods has stumped city staff for the past two years.

“It was not per the plan. It was off by 50 feet, under a pile of brush, completely covered and we never saw the thing,” Public Works Manager Craig Hanson said.

This problem cost time, money and resources.

“It's out of sight, out of mind. You don't think about it,” foreman Dave Acker of Dave Schmitt Construction said.

During the 2008 flood, the cover of a 1960's era pipe eroded away and got pushed off by the water pressure. It left a gaping hole and twenty-four inch opening into the sanitary sewer system.

Whenever the nearby Prairie Creek floods, five million gallons of water a day rushes into the pipeline because of this situation. That's the equivalent of more than 40,000 people flushing their toilets several times all at once.

“It's a significant issue to get this repair fixed,” Acker said, “We had to go out here and clean it out and re-grout the joint.”

When the city found the hole several months ago, crews put a temporary cap on it. This week, weather conditions allowed workers to create a more permanent seal. They will also layer heavy stones around the pipe to act as a buffer that will prevent water pressure from knocking off the top again in the future.

Now that crews have found and repaired the mysterious leak, Hanson says water quality will improve and sewer bills will drop because all that extra water won't tax the system anymore.

There are entrances into Cedar Rapids' sanitary sewer system every 350 to 400 feet to allow easy access. But, in this case, the city's maps did not have the pipeline plotted properly. That's why the problem was so difficult to diagnose and locate.

Crews found the hole in the system by feeding a camera through the pipeline.

Mark Geary, KCRG-TV 9