Crews with the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD) and Hunt Vac Services, a private contractor, completed the primary cleanup phase, which consists of “vacuuming” up the sewage and draining the water out of the ditch where the overflow occurred, early Wednesday morning.
MSD crews on site have begun to power wash and spot disinfect the area which was affected by the sewage overflow. This portion of the cleanup process is ongoing and will continue for the next 48 to 72 hours.
On Tuesday afternoon an MSD Pump Station Technician visited the pump station, located on the Bridgeton Landfill property, for a regular routine inspection and discovered that the pump station was not operating. This pump station takes the sewage from Bridgeton Landfill’s pretreatment facility and puts it into a force main that eventually leads to the Bissell Pointe Wastewater Treatment Plant located along the Mississippi River.
The Technician immediately took steps to restart the pump station. However while the pump station was not operating about 11,000 gallons of sewage overflowed from manhole into a contained ditch on the Bridgeton Landfill property. The overflow did not go into any area waterways; it was contained to the Bridgeton Landfill property.
Samples from the sewage overflow have been sent to a laboratory for testing and those results are expected within a week.
The cause for why the pump station stopped operating is still not determined. When further information becomes available MSD will share this information with the public.
Until MSD has identified and fixed what went wrong, steps are being taken to physically monitor the pump station 24 hours a day.
There is no threat to public health or safety. Additionally the overflow was contained on Bridgeton Landfill property.
MSD understands the community’s concerns about the Bridgeton Landfill and its operations. MSD will continue to diligently share further information on this incident as it becomes available.