Broken sewer pump a ‘nightmare situation’ for WM Utility Dept.

Broken sewer pump a ‘nightmare situation’ for WM Utility Dept.

Commission greenlights $ 400,000 for station repairs

news@theeveningtimes.com

The pump pushing threefourths of the city sewage is in trouble. West Memphis Utilities engineers reported the problem and presented the fix to commissioners during the board’s April 12 meeting.

This is a nightmare situation,” said Water and Sewer Engineer Amanda Hicks.

“As you know Pump Station 8 is our main station right before all the flow goes to the wastewater treatment plant.”

The pump house at South 7th Street at Jefferson needs a fix and it won’t be easy. The last rehab at that location was eleven years ago.

“At that time we put in submersible pumps,” said Hicks. “The motor now sits on top of the pump and the drive shaft. Now that all the equipment is down, if anything is wrong with the motor you have to pull up a large section. The motor itself is eight tons.”

Not only is the pump heavy, it is taller than the building that covers it “You can’t just pull it out, you have to raise it, tilt it and slide it out to fix it,” said Hicks.

The nightmare continues, more than one pump is out.

“The first pump went out and it has been a domino effect,” said Hicks. “All the pumps went out. We had two large pumps and a small back up pump all went out. Pumps at Station 8 are being run by auxiliary pumps.”

The engineer gave the current status and Assistant Utilities Manager Todd Pedersen outlined the fix.

“We’ve already pulled the pumps,” said Hicks.

Now engineers want to modify the building to facilitate working on the pumps. The nightmare impacts operating procedures too.

“It becomes a safety nightmare because the way the station is set up,” said Pedersen. “As the station is now, you cannot even pull the bowl at the bottom portion of the pump out of the hole. I don’t even know how they got it down there. We brought a contractor in from Memphis to work 27 straight hours to get auxiliary pumping started.”

The nightmare is recurring not only at Station 8, but there are more problems at Station 9 too.

The engineers asked commissioners to approve upgrades at stations 8 and 9 amounting to well over $400,000 for a dry well slab and hoist modifications. The commission passed the already budgeted expense unanimously, approving the lowest of three qualified bids.

By John Rech