LACONIA — Six months ago the city Public Works Department warned residents to stop putting so-called flushable wipes down the toilet. Apparently some people did not get the message.
So, once again the department is pleading with the public to stop it, because while disinfectant wipes and paper towels can be flushed down the toilet, they do not disintegrate like toilet paper and are continuing to clog up sewer lines around the city.
“We haven’t had any overflows,” Public Works Director Wes Anderson said. “But we’re trying to be proactive.”
Anderson said his department typically is alerted to problems by residents or businesses who notice that sinks or bathtubs are all of sudden draining much slower that usual.
“Then we go to that area and blow out the line,” he said.
At the very least, Anderson said the buildup of non-dissolvable paper products slows down the flow of wastewater through the sewage system. If the buildup is not cleared, it can result in a line becoming clogged, which could lead to an overflow or backup.
Anderson said the problem has been most persistent in areas with apartment buildings and other multifamily dwellings, such as Lakeport and Busy Corner, where parts of the sewer system are more than 100 years old.
“We have also had spot issues throughout the urban core of the city,” he said.
In an effort to get the public’s attention once again, the problem was the top item in the city’s weekly newsletter, Laconia Links.
The Links item cited a 2019 study that tested 101 wipes on the market and found that none of them passed.
These wipes should be tossed in the trash, not flushed down the toilet, Anderson said.
He said while the city is concerned about the buildup of this material in the city’s sewer mains, there is also a serious risk of these wipes clogging the connector line from an individual home because those lines are only half the size of the lines in the streets.
Anderson said that putting these items into the sewer system has been a problem for some time, but the COVID crisis has made it worse.
“Because people are home more and using more of these wipes, it’s become a bigger problem,” he said.
(1) comment
how does everyone not know this. Stop wiping your bumbum with cloth and use toilet paper. Stop effing up our sewers.
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