Mar 9, 2018 2 min read

Duncan Avenue residents may soon be getting answers and solutions to their sewage problem.

Washington-East Washington Joint Authority solicitor Lane Turturice said the authority put a camera into the sanitary lines on Duncan and Allison avenues in Washington to look for problems in an area where residents were experiencing feet of black sewage coming up from drains in their homes every time it rained.

Turturice said the authority is working to make repairs to a crack in a sewer line, which he said occurred because the municipal stormwater line “was installed squarely on top of” the sewer line. He said the load from the stormwater has caused the sewer line to crack over time.

“The authority has been working collaboratively with the city on this issue and has shared its findings with city officials so that it has a better understanding of the problem and what it might do to address the stormwater system in that section of the city,” he said in an email.

Several residents attended a city council meeting last month to voice concerns about the sewage and press for a solution. Councilman Ken Westcott said the city will work together with the joint authority to make sure the problem is fixed “as soon as possible.”

The city also plans to address another stormwater problem in that neighborhood – a 4-foot sinkhole in a backyard at the corner of Duncan and Fourth Street.

City engineer Sarah Boyce, with Widmer Engineering, said that because of wet ground on the property, the city has not been able to do an investigative dig at the site of the sinkhole, which developed in January as the result of a collapsed storm sewer conveyance tunnel.

“They have delivered a piece of equipment out there, but they haven’t started the dig yet,” she said.

The sinkhole, which is about 4 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep, opened up in the backyard of Ken and Sandra Dyson – right next to their in-ground swimming pool.

“The good news is it hasn’t gotten bigger,” Westcott said last week.

At its March 1 meeting, council approved hiring Robert C. Burns Co. to conduct the investigative dig. The plan is to dig up the tunnel to see if the storm tunnel has collapsed farther down, according to Boyce.