ThisWeek CW 07/09/2015

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2015/07/06/canal-winchester-warns-against-flushing-wipes.html

The canister of pre-moistened wipes may say the things are flushable, but Canal Winchester officials are warning residents not to believe everything they read on a label.

Water Reclamation Superintendent Steve Smith said last month that even with the installation of a $4,000 pump to help deal with clogging issues, his department is again finding sewage backups caused primarily by grease and those so-called flushable wipes.

“Even after installing a new high-capacity pump, we had yet another sewer backup,” Smith said. “This is happening again because of flushable wipes and grease.

” I wish they wouldn’t (say) ‘flushable’ because our system isn’t meant to process those,” he said. “We’re going to go door to door to hang flyers letting people know that they are putting their own house and their neighbors’ homes in danger by flushing these things. When people use their toilet as a trashcan, they’re going to cause a problem.”

Smith said past efforts with distributing flyers were successful in Canal Winchester for several years, and he hopes it helps again.

“We’ve had success with our flyers in Canal Winchester in the past. Unfortunately, we had also distributed over a thousand flyers in the Pickerington service area and it was much less successful and they had several backups because of it,” Smith said. “This time, we also want to get Lithopolis to do something similar as well.”

Canal Winchester provides sewer and water service to portions of Pickerington, the Pickerington Ponds area and Lithopolis.