News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
There's not much nastier a problem for a school facility than a sewer pipe backup in the kitchen. That happened twice late last month at Sisters Elementary School, and now the school district is looking at replacing a failed section of pipe.
"We had a belly in the pipe," said Sisters School district Facilities Manager Leland Bliss. "That belly has filled up with grease. It has plugged the pipe up."
The clog caused a backup into the kitchen at the elementary school on January 27. A contractor came out and pushed the grease plug through the pipe, but it didn't clear sufficiently and a second backup occurred on January 29, Bliss said.
"It backed clear water into the kitchen," Bliss said. "It's hard to know what you've got coming up. It is a (sewer) pipe."
Bliss said that both incidents occurred at times when the kitchen was not serving food.
"There was no risk of food contamination or anything like that," he said. "If you have something like that happen when you're serving food, that's an issue - and that's not what happened."
All areas affected were thoroughly sanitized, Bliss said.
With help from City of Sisters Public Works, the district ran a camera down the pipe after the January 29 incident, and found the belly in the pipe.
"We're going to run a tracer line through it and locate the belly underground and then we'll dig it up and replace that section of line," Bliss said.
The complexity, timeline - and cost - of the operation all depends on the location of the belly. If it's under the grass area adjacent to the school buildings, it will be a relatively easy and quick repair.
"If it's an easy fix, I'd replace as much of that cast-iron pipe as I can," Bliss said.
If the location is under concrete, the work will be more complicated, take longer, and cost more.
The expense will come out of a tight district facilities maintenance budget.
Bliss hopes to get the problem resolved as soon as possible. If it requires a lot of time and removal of concrete, the project will probably have to wait till the school is closed for spring break. If it's an easy fix, it might be achievable in an afternoon's work, after school lets out.
In any case, the district was to "jet" the pipe this week to give it a thorough cleaning and - hopefully - prevent a recurrence of the messy problem before a permanent fix is in place.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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