Lake Q Swim Ban Lifted – Updates

Updated Friday, 8/25

UPDATED 6am – Wednesday 8/23

WORCESTER – Hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw sewage flowed into Lake Quinsigamond Tuesday morning after a computer glitch shut down pumps in a city sewer pumping station on Lake Avenue.

Philip D. Guerin, director of water and sewer operations for the city of Worcester, said the untreated sewage flowed out of the station near Belmont Street sometime between 7 and 7:30 a.m.

A no-swimming order was issued for Lake Quinsigamond after the incident.

A couple of people at the state park said they were upset that they paid the entrance fee to the park at the gate but were not told the lake was closed to swimming.

The city manager’s office issued a news release Tuesday morning about the problem, saying sewage overflowed for about an hour and a quarter.

The incident prompted officials to close the lake to swimming, boating and other recreational activities because the bacteria released can cause illness.

The city will sample and test the water to be sure it meets “recreational water quality standards” before allowing activities to resume.

“What we encountered was a glitch in the computer operating system that was telling the system that it had very little flow, so it told the pumps there was very little flow when in fact the flows were at their normal level early in the morning,” Mr. Guerin said. The highest sewage flows are in the morning.

The computer program told the station to shut the pumps off, but the sewage flow continued.

He said the Lake Avenue station is the largest and most modern pumping station in the city. It is capable of pumping 20 million gallons a day.

“We rebuilt it to make it more reliable and capable of pumping so it would not overflow in wet weather,” he said.

He added, “What we have now is probably the most high-tech, sophisticated facility we own and manage. It has lots of instrumentation, all run by computer, and makes adjustments depending on what is happening.”

The amount of sewage that got into the lake has not been determined.

“We don’t have that number yet. We have to go through the data to see what the flow rates were at the time,” he said.

The system was brought under control around 8:45 a.m.

Any bacteria that made its way into the lake will be dealt with naturally, Mr. Guerin said.

“We will wait for nature to take its course. Bacteria in waste water dies off. Once it is out in the environment, between sunlight and processes in the lake, that is what kills it off. Obviously it takes longer in warmer weather than if it happened in the winter. Years ago we would dump chlorine in the water, but that is more harmful,” he said.
  

UPDATED 4pm – Tuesday 8/22

WORCESTER – A no-swimming order has been issued for Lake Quinsigamond after sewage was released from a pumping station into the lake Tuesday morning.

A problem at a pumping station caused the sewage to overflow for more than an hour, according to a news release from the city manager’s office.

The incident prompted officials to close the lake to swimming, boating and other recreational activities because the bacteria released can cause illness.

The city will sample and test the water to be sure it meets “recreational water quality standards” before allowing recreational activities to resume.

Source:

http://www.telegram.com/news/20170822/computer-glitch-blamed-for-sewage-in-lake-quinsigamond

http://www.telegram.com/news/20170822/no-swimming-at-quinsigamond-after-worcester-spills-sewage