A sewer line break occurred at Weed Beach Park, apparently on Sunday, and repair crews arrived at the scene, First Selectman Jon Zagrodzky announced on Instagram at about 3 p.m., Sunday.
He did not say when the leak started or was discovered, but he did say the situation is “under control.”
A team from the Department of Public Works was on the scene, along with “emergency contractors,” Zagrodzky said as part of a series of four posts, three with videos (below) from the park from 3 to 6 p.m. He later praised contractors from Penna Construction and the DPW team.
The crews were holding sewage in a depression in the ground, and trucks with pumps were draining sewage out, then transporting it to Stamford’s sewage treatment plant. As of 6 p.m., the crews were excavating in order to get at the leak and repair it, Zagrodzky said.
“Please stay away from this area while these crews work,” Zagrodzky wrote in his initial post. “No action required from town resident[s] at this time,” he added.
In the video he also recorded himself describing the situation, saying in part:
“OK everybody, it is about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, [Sunday] December 1st. We’ve had a sewer main break at Weed Beach. So I’m coming up on where it is. This is just past the gate house on the left. You can see here this is one of the main sewer lines for the town. About two thirds of the towns sewage flows through here on its way to Stamford treatment centers. So this is broken somewhere underneath the road here.
“So what they’re doing now is they’re going to try to contain this spill until the flow rates drop, and then they’re going to excavate that area to try to locate the leak to fix it, so for right now, nothing for anyone [else in town] to do, just to please stay away from Weed Beach. They’re going to have to close this and clear everyone out of the parking lot to get this work done tonight.”
Here’s the first video:
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At 3:30 p.m. and 4:15 p.m., Zagrodzky posted more videos from the scene, showing pooling liquid in one area and a hole dug into the ground with workers around it.
In the 3:30 video update, Zagrodzky recorded himself saying:
“So this is the containment area where they’re looking to contain the sewer spill pending a repair. But basically what they have done is put some piles of dirt on the side to create a containment pool, almost.
“And what they’ve got is a series of vacuum trucks that are coming in like this one that will take water out of this containment area and will take it over to a pump station in Stamford, where it can be treated, and they’ll keep trucks moving back and forth till the flow rate drops and they can get underway with repairs.
“And you can see here where those crews are getting ready to excavate that area to identify and fix that [break?], so more to come.”
Here’s the video:
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About 45 minutes later, Zagrodzky posted this video without narration:
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Image from a short video posted by Zagrodzky on Instagram. His caption said, “Sewer line break – 4:15 pm update.”
In his final post to Instagram at about 6 p.m., Zagrodzky wrote
“Sewer line break — 6 p.m. update. Sewage flow contained. No danger to residents or the beach. Crews still working to find and repair the leak. A big thank you to the Public Works team and the contractors from Penna Construction. Really terrific!”
He didn’t post a video this time, instead publishing this picture of the excavation under a paved area:
Photo from Jon Zagrodzky account on Instagram
Picture accompanying Zagrodzky’s 6 p.m. post on Instagram: “Crews still working to find and repair the leak. A big thank you to the Public Works team and the contractors from Penna Construction.”