Clogged pipe floods homes with sewage

Clogged pipe floods homes with sewage

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Story Published: May 13, 2007 at 4:46 PM PDT

Story Updated: May 14, 2007 at 5:24 PM PDT

By Theron Zahn

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KING COUNTY - A sewage line clogged with construction debris from the Brightwater sewer project in Woodinville project has caused raw sewage to flow through several homes. And homeowners and builders are at odds over what to do about the aftermath.

Homeowners say the sewage just kept coming.

"My wife called me franticly to tell me that the house was flooding with sewage," said Allyn Llyr, a homeowner.

Llyr's house is one of several that flooded after a sewer line out front became plugged with construction debris from the Brightwater sewer project going in up the road.

"The sewage was all here throughout the bathroom. It got into my cabinets. My wife rescued all the wedding pictures and baby pictures," he said.

Smelly toxic water destroyed everything it touched. It even flowed down the heating vents.

"We have mold that's coming in everywhere," Llyr said.

And he's even more angry about what he says the project's contractor told him after the flood.

"'We'll have someone over there to vacuum out the water. We'll dry it out and you can move back in.' I said 'you can't do that this is raw sewage.' They said they'd disinfect it," Llyr said.

That's why he's taking on the repairs and cleaning up himself.

Llyr and his wife wanted to put the house up for sale June 1st, but in the current condition, that's impossible.

But Brightwater Manager Gunars Sreibers tells a different story. He says the sewer was not clogged by his workers, but by vandals. And project managers and contractors did all they could to help.

"I think the people we have dealt with are very satisfied with our response," Sriebers said. "In this particular instance a homeowner elected to hire their own contractor and not use our contractor and that resulted in some delay."

But Llyr says it's resulted in more than just a delay.

"They've threatened us," he said. "They've demanded that we use their services or good luck getting any money to help pay for this."

This isn't the first time the project has sent raw sewage into homes. Six weeks ago, a pump failed and flooded another house.

"We're constructing a tight residential quarters, every once in a while something is going to go wrong," Sreibers said.

Llyr is working as fast as he can to fix his house before something else goes wrong.

The Brightwater sewage treatment plant is expected to begin operations in 2010. The $1.6 billion project includes a plan to mitigate the impact around the plant and a 12-mile underground pipeline to Puget Sound.



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